You may have missed it, but Google announced a few months ago that they would be marking all HTTP sites as “not secure“ in Chrome. That could lead to people avoiding your blog because their browser is saying the site is unsafe, and could affect your search rankings in the future.
If you’re a Blogger user, go to the Basics part of your Settings menu, and change the HTTPS redirect setting to Yes (for more detail, check out this post on Blogger Help)
If you’re a self hosted blogger, then the first thing to do is to contact your hosting provider. Some hosting providers provide an SSL certificate as part of your hosting package, so it could be just a matter of switching it on – if they haven’t already informed you, then just drop them a message to check.
SSL certificates can cost quite a bit, but some hosting providers offer a free alternative from Let’s Encrypt. You can check if your hosting provider offers this alternative on this help page at Let’s Encrypt. As a WordPress user, we found once we had enabled the Let’s Encrypt certificate in the control panel, we needed to install the plugin Really Simple SSL to switch the site over.
Since all websites and hosts are different, if you have any problems enabling this, you are best speaking with your providers first if there is anything you are unsure of.
