Nowadays an SSL installation is crucial in protecting both your website and your website visitors. SSL encrypts data sent between a web server and a browser. This helps protect customers’ personal information such as credit card and address from being infiltrated. It also protects your website from being hacked, infected with a virus or copied.
SSL, in this case, stands for Secure Sockets Layer. When you install SSL on a domain name, it is given an SSL certificate. After you install an SSL certificate on a domain name, you can then choose the “https” protocol for building your website.
Some web hosts, such as my favorite LeaseHost, make it easy to install an SSL certificate on a domain name.
In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through installing an SSL certificate on a domain using the free SSL service called “Let’s Encrypt SSL.” In my Lease Host control panel, this is found under the “Security” heading. The location may vary from host to host, but you can always send a support request if you don’t see it.
So let’s go ahead and install SSL on my domain name “billytours.com.”
I’ve already logged into my control panel, so I scroll down to where it says “Security.”
The blue icon you see at the bottom of the middle column in the picture above is the link to the “Let’s Encrypt SSL” service. The “Let’s Encrypt SSL” service is a trademarked service that is provided free of charge by some of the good guys working to make the internet a safer, more user-friendly place. Not so long ago, webmasters had to pay for an SSL certificate. Now, they have the option of using this amazing SSL service that’s absolutely free of charge. So let’s go ahead and click the “Let’s Encrypt SSL” icon and we’re taken to a page that looks like the one below.
As you can probably see in the picture, the new screen shows me a list of domains (only one so far) already issued with an SSL certificate by Let’s Encrypt, and it also gives me the option to install another one from my domains list that is already hosted with Lease Host.
So let’s scroll a little bit and select a domain which I want to issue the certificate to.
The pictures above show a list of my domain names which are still without an SSL certificate and to which I could using Let’s Encrypt. So for the purposes of this tutorial, I’ll chose to install an SSL certificate on my domain name “billytours.com.”
So I just click on the “Issue” button show in the pic above, and I’m taken to a new page to complete the process.
I select all the options for adding the subdomains except the Wildcard option, because the Wildcard option is not really important the kind of site I’m building right now, and I’ll explain more about this later.
I’m also asked to choose and SSL validation method, as you can see from the picture. I choose the “http-01” option. And that’s it! I just click the “Issue” button to install and SSL certificate on my domain name “billytours.com.”
I wait a few seconds and a new screen loads telling me that the process was complete and that my website will now be encrypted.
So that’s how you give your domain name an SSL Certificate using Let’s Encrypt SSL.
I used “billytours.com” as the example for this tutorial because I had already completed this process with “amazonashotelgy.com.”
However, the next lesson will continue how to install WordPress on your domain name using “amazonashotelgy.com” as the example domain name.
Please note that sometimes the tutorial will use “billytours.com” for demonstration purposes and at other times it will use “amazonashotelgy.com” for demonstration purposes. That is because I’m in the process of building both sites simultaneously.
