Internet marketers interested in SEO want their websites to gain more visibility online. One way is to make use of tactics to help sites rise up the search engine results. So here we are testing what will happen if we get an SSL certificate and make use of HTTPS in a WordPress-powered blog.
Here are some of the things we learned:
1. We had to get rid of images that couldn’t be served via https. Here’s the code snippet we had to remove from the sidebar:
<a href=”http://www.topblogs.com.ph/marketing-seo/”><img style=”border:none” src=”https://www.topblogs.com.ph/track_47991.gif” alt=”Marketing & SEO – Top Blogs Philippines” /></a>
(We’re leaving the code here just in case we decide to use it again in the future. This is one of the many benefits of having a blog.)
2. We used this plugin: Really Simple SSL.
It beats having to go through all the posts where our images refer to HTTP domain name instead of HTTPS domain name.
Caveat: WordPress SSL-related plugins tend to change instances of http to https so please check your code.
3. We ran the Qualys SSL Server Test to see if the security certificate was properly installed, and to check if the webhost provider setup a secure site.
Got a grade of A-
4. We read various blog posts and have decided to try this first without using a unique IP address.
This helps us save on costs, especially since we don’t get a lot of visitors who are using a combination of WindowsXP and Internet Explorer.
5. We learned to use relative URLs for media.
Instead of just using the default WordPress embedded HTML code for images, we now remove the domain name part and just start with /wp-content because this makes the site more flexible if ever we decide to move back to HTTP from HTTPS in the future.
Using SSLs and HTTPS in a WordPress-powered site is like eating halo-halo. At the start, the many things you need to do can be overwhelming, just like the numerous sweet ingredients you find in an ice-cold glass of halo-halo.
After a while, however, you’ll get the hang of it. And then you’ll discover how yummy halo-halo (or mix-mix in English) can be.
We hope this inspires more online marketers to enable HTTPS in your blogs or websites.
To Your Success!
Kind regards,
Manny M. Viloria
P.S. To see the online marketing training that’s available for Pinoys, go and review http://AyawKongMagBlog.com
