How can you secure your site's HTTPS and SSL certificates with SEO audit tools?

1 Step 1: Scan your site for HTTPS and SSL issues

An essential first step in ensuring your site's security and ranking is to use an SEO audit tool to scan your site for any HTTPS and SSL issues. Popular and reliable tools such as Screaming Frog, Semrush, and Ahrefs can detect errors like mixed content (when resources are loaded over HTTP instead of HTTPS), invalid certificates (when the SSL certificate is expired, revoked, self-signed, or issued by an untrusted authority), and mismatched certificates (when the SSL certificate does not match the domain name). To run a scan, you need to enter your site's URL into the SEO audit tool of your choice and wait for the crawl to complete. Depending on the size and complexity of your site, this may take a few minutes or hours. Afterward, you can view the results and identify which pages have HTTPS or SSL issues and what type of issues they are.

2 Step 2: Fix your site's HTTPS and SSL issues

The second step is to fix your site's HTTPS and SSL issues as soon as possible, as they can have a negative impact on your site's security and ranking. Depending on the type and severity of the issues, you may need to take different actions. For mixed content, you can update the URLs of the resources in your code, use relative URLs, or implement a global redirect from HTTP to HTTPS. You can also use plugins or extensions that can automatically fix mixed content for you. To fix invalid certificates, you need to renew or replace your SSL certificate with a valid one from a trusted authority. Free SSL services such as Let's Encrypt or Cloudflare can also be used to obtain and install valid SSL certificates. To fix mismatched certificates, you need to make sure that your SSL certificate matches your domain name exactly by checking your SSL certificate details and domain name settings and making any necessary changes. Additionally, tools such as SSL Checker or SSL Server Test can be used to verify that your SSL certificate and domain name are compatible.

3 Step 3: Test your site's HTTPS and SSL status

The third step is to test your site's HTTPS and SSL status after you have fixed any issues. This is critical for ensuring the security, functionality, and compliance of your site with the latest standards and best practices. To do this, you can use tools such as SSL Labs, Why No Padlock?, and Google Search Console. SSL Labs can perform a comprehensive analysis of your site's SSL configuration and grade it from A to F based on its security level, performance, and compatibility. Why No Padlock? can check for mixed content issues and provide a list of the insecure resources and their locations. Google Search Console can help you monitor and optimize your site's performance and visibility on Google, as well as alerting you to any HTTPS or SSL issues that may affect your site's indexing, crawling, or ranking.

4 Step 4: Monitor your site's HTTPS and SSL performance

The fourth and final step is to monitor your site's HTTPS and SSL performance regularly, as they can change over time due to various factors such as certificate expiration, revocation, or protocol updates. To ensure your site's HTTPS and SSL status is secure, functional, and optimal for your site's security and ranking, you need to use SEO audit tools to scan your site for any HTTPS and SSL issues at least once a month. Additionally, you should use tools such as SSL Labs, Why No Padlock?, and Google Search Console to test your site's HTTPS and SSL status at least once a week. This way, you can make sure your site is up-to-date with the latest security threats and technologies.

5 Here’s what else to consider

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