Do I need an SSL certificate?

Yes. Every website needs one, and it should not cost anything.

What it does

An SSL/TLS certificate encrypts the connection between your visitor's browser and your server. It is the difference between http:// and https://, and the padlock in the address bar.

Without it:

• Browsers show a "Not secure" warning, which scares visitors off.
• Anything typed into a form, a login, a contact message, a card number, can be read in transit.
• Google uses HTTPS as a ranking signal, so you are quietly penalised.

Getting one

Free certificates from Let's Encrypt are issued and renewed automatically by almost every decent host. There is no need to buy a paid certificate for a normal business site, they encrypt exactly the same way.

If the padlock is missing or broken

• "Not secure" on every page: no certificate is installed. Your host can usually enable one in a few clicks.
• Padlock on the homepage but not others: "mixed content", the page is loading an image, script or stylesheet over http://. Those references need updating to https://.
• "Certificate expired": automatic renewal has failed. This is worth fixing quickly, an expired certificate blocks the site entirely in most browsers.

We monitor SSL certificates on every site we host, so an expiry never becomes an outage. More on hosting.