Moving WordPress Site from HTTP to HTTPS

Moving your site from HTTP to HTTPS can be a challenge especially if it is WordPress based and it was not developed with HTTPS in mind from the get go.  The SEO world was surprised to hear Google announce that HTTPS (SSL) will now be a ranking signal as it was first hinted several months ago by Matt Cutts but now it seems it is official.

STEPS TO MOVE WORDPRESS SITE TO HTTPS

Please note that in order to have HTTPS (SSL) the domain name in question must have a valid SSL Certificate installed as well as in many cases a dedicated IP address depending on your hosting provider.  If you need help with that feel free to contact us and we can certainly help you.

1. One of the first things that you will need to do is install the WordPress SSL Insecure Content Fixer plugin which can be found here. This will help make sure the code gets pushed through as HTTPS instead of HTTP.
2. From WP-ADMIN simply click on Settings & then General and change the WordPress Address & Site Address to https://whatever-your-domain-is.com
3. At this point WordPress will log you out so its a good idea to log back in.
4. At this point you will need to connect via FTP and get to your theme folder and then open up the functions.php file and you will copy and paste the following code to the bottom and then save and upload.

function my_force_ssl() {
return true;
}
add_filter('force_ssl', 'my_force_ssl', 10, 3);

That is it so at this point you should now have your entire WordPress site on HTTPS (SSL).