How to install a free Lets Encrypt SSL certificate

What’s Lets Encrypt?

Lets Encrypt is a non-profit company that specializes in providing free SSL certificates forever. They follow their own FASTOC principles which guide them on maintaining a quality service for all.

Why you need an SSL

SSL certificates are commonplace across the internet. Google has been pushing for industry-wide HTTPs adoption since 2014. Also, since 2019 Chrome users will now see sites with mixed content as not secure. Therefore, if your business relies on traffic from Google (Organic Traffic) then having an SSL certificate is paramount.

Aside from the obvious SEO benefits. Having a nice padlock icon next to your domain name is a really strong trust-factor increasing the credibility of your site and your business.

Finally, SSL provides protection for your users through encryption. Having an SSL on your site increases the level of security available, thus increasing the likelihood a user will be happy to part with the sensitive information required to purchase a product or create an account.

Luckily, at zzHosting we support free automatic SSL through both the Lets Encrypt cPanel tool. This guide will walkthrough how to install Lets Encrypt on your website using the tool.

Install a Lets Encrypt SSL

• Firstly, login to your cPanel account for your hosting.
• Afterwards, scroll down to the security section and click Lets Encrypt SSL.
• Now that you’re inside the Lets Encrypt tool. Click on issue next to your domain.
• Now you can select the areas you want the free certificate to cover.
• Before clicking issue, choose a validation method either http-01 or dns-01*
• Finally, click issue. The tool will being to automatically install the SSL.

Your certificate may take some time to show as installed when visiting the domain. This is normal and falls under propagation, meaning the time it takes for changes made to propagate across the internet.

*Lets Encrypt supports wildcard certificates. However, to install a wildcard certificate on your domain you need to use the dns-01 validation method.