Siteground include the option to install free Let’s Encrypt SSL certs with their hosting packages. Installing a SSL cert on Siteground websites is a quick and easy process. The most up to date details can be found in Siteground’s Let’s Encrypt Tutorial.
Why do you need a SSL cert anyway?
Websites that don’t have the basic security provided by a SSL cert have a ‘not secure’ message in the browser address bar. Search engines will penalise your website for this, and visitors may have less trust in your website.
Create a Let’s Encrypt SSL cert for your website and install it
Go to the Let’s Encrypt Tool in the CPanel (it’s right at the bottom)
In the ‘Install new Let’s Encrypt Certificate’ section, use the dropdown to select the domain you want to install SSL on and make sure the Type is “Let’s Encrypt SSL”.
Hit the Install button to generate and install the SSL certificate. Now you have an SSL cert for that domain, but you’re not actually using it for your website yet.
WordPress Website HTTPS Configuration
Go to your wordpress dashboard and look under Settings -> General
You need to update your site url from http://yourdomainname to https://yourdomainname
Save the changes.
Now you have an SSL cert and your website is using it.
Fix SSL cert warnings
Yet while the website address now says https, the icon on your address bar is still an i icon instead of the padlock.
One reason is that your website will still references internal links and resources using http instead of https. To fix this you need to make sure that https is being used across your whole website. Another reason for getting this icon is due to ‘mixed content’ on the website where you are using external images and links.This is easily fixed back in your Siteground Let’s Encrypt section.
Use the dropdown list for the domain to check the HTTPs settings.
Switch on ‘HTTPS enforce’ to force all http requests to your website to go to https instead.
Switch on the rewrite option to get rid of the ‘mixed content’ errors
Now load up your website again in a browser and you should see the secure padlock icon indicating that your SSL cert configuration has been successful.
