Securing websites is not an afterthought these days as the level of protection required to guard against hackers and data breaches is increasing day by day.
The topic of security becomes even more important when it is included in the criteria that search engines use to evaluate the quality of websites and the impact on a website's appearance in search results.
One of the most important ways to secure your website is to encrypt the data exchanged between your website and its visitors using an encryption method called Secure Sockets Layer - also known as SSL.
In order to use this method to secure the exchange of data on your website, you must obtain an SSL security certificate from one of your hosts.
Some hosting companies offer SSL certificates with an annual subscription, while others offer them for free with an annual subscription, such as: Bluehost, Inmotionhosting, Hostinger, etc. If you plan to host your website with one of these companies, you will receive a free SSL certificate and not pay any additional subscription fees for it.
But if you sign up with a host that doesn't offer it for free, like: Godaddy, you can turn to the organization's site (Let's Encrypt), which provides this certificate for free and is supported by many many big tech companies, which also depend on donations to make the internet safer.
You can also create an account for your website on the platform (Cloudflare) which is specifically designed to protect websites from hackers as it provides free SSL certificates for websites you subscribe to, including those on the free plan.
After activating the SSL certificate on your website, it will use the HTTPS protocol instead of the old HTTP protocol, and a padlock icon will appear in front of the website name in your Internet browser's address bar.
If your website does not have an SSL certificate, visitors will see a warning message in their browser telling them that the website is not safe to enter their information, and some will leave the website, leaving their information at risk.
Therefore, you must obtain this certificate and activate it on your website as soon as possible so as not to lose more visitors and with them many opportunities to convert them into customers.
Sometimes, even after activating the certificate on your website, an error message appears in the blocking tab, usually because there are old links to files that use the old HTTP protocol, as well as other links that use the HTTPS protocol, which has been replaced by something called (mixed content). .
This problem can be solved by calling the web developer responsible for creating the website, or if your website is running WordPress, by installing add-ons that specifically solve this problem, the most famous of which is (Really Simple SSL) Add-on, the installation size exceeds 5 million.