In my last post (Google and SSL – What You Need to Know), I gave a brief background on SSL, recent Google changes, and how these changes impact you as a website owner. I’ve been doing research and working with some of you on issues you are seeing with the warnings and error messages certain browsers will show you on your “insecure” sites. If you haven’t seen them yet, here are some examples:
I’m happy to report that I’ve now completed researching the best options for obtaining a stable, affordable, reliable, SSL certificate as well as a fairly easy way to implement them and I’m ready to make my recommendations. One of my tests involved installing SSL on my own website. As opposed to the images above, once SSL is installed your website will look something like this:
In the next week or so, you’ll be getting an email from me with a personal recommendation for your specific situation. In general, here is the approach:
If your site is built on WordPress:
I have decided to migrate all my WordPress sites to Liquid Web’s “Managed WordPress” solution. One of the benefits of this migration is that your migrated site will include the installation of an SSL certificate. The migration will be performed overnight and should not cause any outages. To accommodate for the SSL certificate, I will be charging $50/year. This is far cheaper than competing options of $100/year and up to $250 or $300 per year. I am hopeful that with everyone moving to SSL encryption, it will become standard and the fees will reduce even more over time. I will email you with a schedule and a plan for your input.
If your site is built on Dot Net Nuke:
I would highly recommend you move to a WordPress solution (see above). If not, I can purchase an SSL certificate and install it for you. The cost is $100/year plus installation fees. I will be in touch.
If your site is built on Wix:
Wix announced that they are now supporting SSL (see here). To implement the change, I can log in to your Wix website and update the files accordingly. This should take one or two hours at the most. I will be in touch to verify you want me to do this.
If your site is built on Wild Apricot:
Wild Apricot will allow me to purchase an SSL certificate but they require a fee for them to install it and they won’t let me install it. The best SSL certificate I have found (i.e. easy to install and most affordable) is $50/year. Wild Apricot will charge another $50 to install it and $50 to reinstall each year. Therefore, the additional cost to you would be $100/year going forward. I will bill this as a straight pass-through cost. I will be in touch.
If your site is built on Shopify:
You have no worries! You should already have an SSL certificate installed as part of your Shopify plan.
For everyone else:
As always, I welcome questions and comments.
