How to install ssl cert and Secure Your Website

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Getting an SSL certificate installed isn't as scary as it sounds. Generally, you'll generate something called a Certificate Signing Request (CSR), send that off to a Certificate Authority (CA), and then upload the certificate files they send back to your web server. The exact commands will differ if you're on Apache versus Nginx, but the core idea is the same everywhere.

Why an SSL Certificate Is Essential for Your Website

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of commands and configs, let’s talk about why this is no longer just a "nice-to-have." Installing an SSL certificate is a baseline requirement for any website today. It’s what turns your domain from an insecure http:// into a trusted https://, and that single letter is the foundation of your online credibility.

Picture this: someone lands on your e-commerce store, ready to buy. They're about to type in their credit card info when their browser plasters a big, ugly "Not Secure" warning across the screen. How many of them do you think will stick around? That alert is often all it takes to lose a sale. This is exactly what SSL is designed to prevent—it builds trust.

The Pillars of SSL Protection

An SSL certificate is doing three crucial jobs in the background to protect both you and your visitors:

Encryption: It scrambles the data flowing between a user's browser and your server. This makes sensitive information like passwords and credit card numbers completely unreadable to anyone trying to snoop.

Authentication: It proves your website is legitimate and not an imposter site set up by attackers. This is what the third-party Certificate Authority verifies.

Data Integrity: It guarantees that the information sent back and forth hasn't been secretly altered or tampered with along the way.

Beyond the obvious security perks, Google has been using HTTPS as a ranking signal for years. A secure site is a non-negotiable part of any solid SEO strategy. If you want to learn more about this, check out our guide on https://feather.so/blog/how-to-show-up-in-google-search.

The Modern Web Is Encrypted

The movement for a secure web isn't just a suggestion anymore; it's the standard. As of 2024, a staggering 87.6% of all websites use a valid SSL certificate. That's a massive jump from just 18.5% six years ago. In the United States, that number is now 99%. If you're curious to dive deeper into the tech, you can learn more by understanding the basics of SSL Certificates.

The bottom line is simple: if your website isn't secured with SSL, you're not just falling behind. You're actively hurting user trust, tanking your search rankings, and leaving money on the table.

Choosing the Right SSL Certificate for Your Needs

Before you can get down to the business of installing an SSL certificate, you have to pick one. It's a decision that boils down to a fundamental question: do you go with a free, automated option like Let's Encrypt, or is it worth investing in a paid certificate from a commercial Certificate Authority (CA)?

There's no single "best" answer here. The right choice depends entirely on your website's purpose and your specific needs. Each option presents a different trade-off between cost, the signals of trust it sends to visitors, and how much hands-on work is involved.

For a huge number of websites, a free SSL is more than enough. If you’re running a personal blog, a simple portfolio, or a small business site that doesn’t handle sensitive payments, Let's Encrypt is a fantastic choice. It provides the same robust encryption as paid certificates, and it's built for automation, which makes the renewal process completely hands-off once you set it up.

Free SSL (Let's Encrypt) vs Paid SSL (Commercial CA)

So, which path should you take? This head-to-head comparison breaks down the key differences to help you decide what's right for your project.

Feature	Let's Encrypt (Free)	Commercial CA (Paid)
Cost	$0	Varies from ~1000+/year
Validation Levels	Domain Validation (DV) only	Offers DV, Organization Validation (OV), and Extended Validation (EV)
Trust Signal	Standard padlock (full encryption)	Standard padlock; higher validation (OV/EV) can increase user trust
Support	Community-based forums and documentation	Dedicated customer support (phone, email, chat)
Warranty	None	Typically includes a warranty against certificate mis-issuance
Certificate Lifespan	90 days (designed for automated renewal)	1 year (manual or automated renewal)
Best For	Blogs, portfolios, small business sites, personal projects	E-commerce, financial sites, businesses handling sensitive data

Ultimately, if your primary goal is to enable HTTPS and secure your site, Let's Encrypt is a perfect, no-cost solution. But if you're running a business where maximizing user trust is paramount, the added benefits of a paid certificate are often well worth the investment.

Understanding Validation Levels

The most significant difference between free and paid certificates often comes down to the level of validation—how thoroughly the CA vets your identity before handing over the certificate.

Domain Validation (DV): This is the baseline. It’s what Let's Encrypt and other free CAs use. The process is fully automated and simply confirms you have control over the domain, usually by having you click a link in an email or add a specific DNS record. It’s fast, easy, and gives you that all-important padlock icon.

Organization Validation (OV): This is a step up. The CA does some light vetting to confirm your organization is a legitimate, registered entity. Your company's name and location are listed in the certificate details, adding a visible layer of trust for savvy visitors who check.

Extended Validation (EV): This is the most stringent check. The CA performs a deep dive into your business, verifying legal documents and operational history according to strict industry standards. While browsers no longer show the prominent "green bar" for EV certs, the verified company name is still prominently displayed in the certificate information.

For any site that processes payments, collects personal information, or handles sensitive data—think e-commerce stores or financial platforms—an OV or EV certificate is a smart investment. It’s a powerful signal to customers that your business is legitimate and trustworthy, which can have a real impact on your conversion rates. The padlock might look the same, but the assurance behind it is much stronger.

With over 305 million active SSL certificates on the web, securing your site is no longer optional. You can explore more fascinating figures and trends in these SSL certificate statistics from sslinsights.com.

How to Generate a Certificate Signing Request

Before a Certificate Authority (CA) will hand over an SSL certificate, you need to formally request one. This starts with generating a Certificate Signing Request, better known as a CSR. Think of it as your official application form, packed with the identifying information the CA needs to verify who you are before issuing the certificate.

This process actually creates two things right on your server. The first is the CSR itself—a block of encoded text you'll send to the CA. The second is your private key, a top-secret file that you must never share. This key is the digital soulmate to your CSR and is what your server uses to encrypt data once your SSL is installed.

Using OpenSSL for CSR Generation

If you're comfortable in the command line, OpenSSL is the go-to tool for this job. It comes pre-installed on just about every Linux-based server out there. With one command, you can generate both your private key and the CSR.

Here’s a command you can adapt for your own domain. It creates a standard 2048-bit RSA private key (yourdomain.key) and the matching CSR file (yourdomain.csr).

openssl req -new -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout yourdomain.key -out yourdomain.csr

Once you run this, you'll be prompted to enter a few details. This info gets embedded right into your certificate request and is known as your Distinguished Name (DN).

Country Name (2 letter code): The two-letter ISO code for your country (e.g., US, GB, CA).

State or Province Name (full name): Don't abbreviate here; spell out the full name.

Locality Name (eg, city): The city where your organization is registered.

Organization Name (eg, company): Your full, legal company name.

Organizational Unit Name (eg, section): This is optional, but you can put a department like "IT" or "Web Security."

Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name): This is the most critical field. You must enter the exact, fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) you intend to secure, like www.yourwebsite.com.

Pro Tip: I can't stress this enough: get the "Common Name" right. If you enter yourwebsite.com but your site lives on www.yourwebsite.com, browsers will throw a fit and show trust errors to your visitors. Double-check it!

After you finish, you'll have two new files. You need to copy the entire contents of the yourdomain.csr file and paste it into the order form on your CA’s website. Guard the yourdomain.key file with your life—keep it safe and secure on your server because you'll need it soon to install the certificate.

Using cPanel for an Easier Path

Not everyone loves the command line, and that's perfectly fine. Most hosting control panels have a much friendlier graphical interface for this. cPanel, being one of the most popular, turns CSR generation into a simple point-and-click affair.

Log into your cPanel account.

Head over to the Security section and click on SSL/TLS.

Under "Certificate Signing Requests (CSR)," find and select Generate, view, or delete SSL certificate signing requests.

You'll see a form asking for the same details as the OpenSSL prompts (domain, company info, etc.). Fill it out.

Click the Generate button.

Just like that, cPanel will show you the CSR and its corresponding private key. The best part? It automatically saves the private key on the server for you, which makes the final installation step much simpler.

Submitting Your CSR and Getting Your Certificate

With your CSR in hand, the next stop is your chosen Certificate Authority. Log into your CA account, start a new certificate order, and when prompted, paste the full text block from your CSR file. Make sure you include everything, from the -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST----- line all the way to -----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----.

The CA will then kick off its validation process. For Domain Validation (DV) certs, this is usually a quick, automated check via email or DNS that takes just a few minutes. Once you're approved, the CA will issue your certificate files. You'll typically get a certificate.crt file (your main cert) and a ca-bundle.crt file (the intermediate certs). These files, plus the private key you generated earlier, are the final pieces of the puzzle for installing your SSL.

Managing custom domains across different platforms can sometimes feel like its own unique challenge. If you're curious about the specifics for other services, check out our guide on how to set up Notion custom domains, where we cover similar concepts for ensuring a secure and seamless connection.

Alright, you’ve got your certificate files from the Certificate Authority. Now for the fun part: getting that SSL cert installed on your web server so you can finally see that beautiful padlock icon in the browser. This is where the magic happens, and we'll cover the process for the two biggest players in the game: Apache and Nginx.

The goal is the same for both. You just need to point your server’s configuration to three specific files:

Your Certificate: This is the main .crt file issued just for your domain.

Your Private Key: The secret .key file you created when you made the CSR. Keep this safe!

The CA Bundle: A file, often ending in .crt or .ca-bundle, that contains the intermediate certificates. This is what connects your cert back to a trusted source.

Let's get our hands dirty and jump into the config files.

Configuring an Apache Web Server

If you're running Apache, all the action happens in your site's Virtual Host file. The location can vary, but you'll typically find them in /etc/apache2/sites-available/ on Debian-based systems (like Ubuntu) or /etc/httpd/conf.d/ on Red Hat systems (like CentOS). Find and open the config file for your domain, something like yourdomain.conf.

Inside that file, you’re looking for the <VirtualHost *:443> block, which is set up to handle all incoming secure traffic. This is where you'll tell Apache where to find your new SSL files.

Here’s a pretty standard example of what that configuration block should look like. The three directives to focus on are SSLCertificateFile, SSLCertificateKeyFile, and SSLCertificateChainFile.

<VirtualHost *:443> ServerName www.yourwebsite.com DocumentRoot /var/www/yourwebsite

SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /path/to/your_domain_name.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/your_private.key
SSLCertificateChainFile /path/to/your_ca_bundle.crt

# Other SSL settings can go here

Just swap out the placeholder paths with the actual locations where you uploaded your certificate files. I usually stash them in a dedicated directory like /etc/ssl/certs/ to keep things organized.

Here’s a pro-tip from experience: always, always double-check the file permissions after you upload your cert and key. Your private key should only be readable by the root user. A quick chmod 600 /path/to/your_private.key can save you from a major security headache later.

Once you've saved the changes, it's a good idea to check for typos. Apache has a built-in command for this that can prevent you from accidentally taking down your site.

sudo apache2ctl configtest

If you get the "Syntax OK" message, you’re golden. Now, you can safely apply the new configuration by restarting the Apache service. This command does it gracefully, reloading the config without dropping any active connections.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

And that’s it for Apache! Your site should now be happily serving traffic over HTTPS.

Configuring an Nginx Web Server

For the Nginx crowd, the process is very similar in concept but uses different commands and file structures. Nginx configurations, known as "server blocks," are usually located in /etc/nginx/sites-available/ or /etc/nginx/conf.d/. Go ahead and open the config file for your site, like yourdomain.conf.

One key difference with Nginx is that it likes your main certificate and the CA bundle to be combined into a single file, often called a "chained" certificate. You can easily whip this up yourself with a simple command.

cat your_domain_name.crt your_ca_bundle.crt > your_domain_chained.crt

Now that you have your chained certificate file, you can edit your Nginx server block. You'll need a server block listening on port 443 that includes the ssl_certificate and ssl_certificate_key directives.

This is what a typical Nginx SSL configuration looks like:

server { listen 443 ssl; server_name www.yourwebsite.com;

ssl_certificate /path/to/your_domain_chained.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /path/to/your_private.key;

# Include other SSL settings like protocols and ciphers
ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

root /var/www/yourwebsite;
index index.html;

}

Just like with Apache, make sure those file paths are pointing to the right place on your server. After you save the file, the next step is crucial: test your new configuration before making it live.

sudo nginx -t

This command will scan all your Nginx files for syntax errors. If it gives you the all-clear, you’re ready to reload the service.

sudo systemctl restart nginx

This command applies the new configuration without any downtime, making your SSL certificate live instantly. By following these steps, you'll have your site secured and serving traffic over HTTPS in no time.

Using Hosting Control Panels for SSL Installation

Let's be honest: for most website owners, digging around in server configuration files using the command line is neither practical nor appealing. The great news is, you probably don't have to. The vast majority of shared and managed hosting environments give you a graphical interface—a control panel—that transforms the complex task of installing an SSL certificate into a simple, point-and-click process.

This approach completely removes the need for server commands, making top-tier security accessible to everyone. If your hosting plan comes with a control panel, this is almost certainly the easiest and safest way to get your site secured with HTTPS.

This is a good visual of what's happening behind the scenes. Your control panel is handling the tricky parts—uploading files, tweaking configurations, and restarting services—so you don't have to.

The cPanel SSL/TLS Manager

If you've ever used shared hosting, you've likely come across cPanel. It's one of the most popular control panels in the industry for a reason. Its "SSL/TLS Manager" provides a dead-simple interface for installing certificates you've purchased from a commercial Certificate Authority.

Once you log into cPanel, you'll usually spot the manager under the "Security" section. The process boils down to pasting the contents of your certificate files into the right text boxes. You'll need:

Certificate (CRT): This is your main server certificate, the .crt file sent by the CA.

Private Key (KEY): This is the key you generated alongside your CSR. If you created the CSR within cPanel, it cleverly saves this for you.

Certificate Authority Bundle (CABUNDLE): This file contains the intermediate certificates that chain your certificate back to the CA's trusted root.

After you've pasted everything in, one click on "Install Certificate" is all it takes. cPanel takes over from there, updating the server configuration and applying the changes for you.

The Rise of Automated SSL on Managed Platforms

The hosting world is constantly getting simpler, and many modern platforms now handle SSL installation completely behind the scenes. This is especially true for managed WordPress hosts and all-in-one website builders.

Providers like WP Engine and Kinsta often have a direct line to Let's Encrypt. In many cases, getting an SSL certificate is as easy as flipping a switch in your hosting dashboard. The platform automatically provisions, installs, and even renews the certificate without you having to do a thing. This automation is a huge driver behind the booming SSL certificate market, which was valued at USD 234.5 million in 2025 and is projected to hit USD 518.4 million by 2032. You can dig into the market dynamics and the major players on the SSL certificate market from coherentmarketinsights.com.

If you're looking for a new provider, it's worth checking out our guide on the best hosting site for blogging, which looks at critical factors like security and ease of use.

How Feather Handles SSL for Custom Domains

Platforms like Feather push automation to the next level, making SSL completely invisible to the user. When you connect a custom domain to your Feather blog, the system automatically provisions and installs a free SSL certificate for it. It just works.

There’s no CSR to generate, no certificate to buy, and no files to paste. The entire process kicks off as soon as your domain's DNS settings are correctly pointing to Feather's servers.

All you have to do is set up the correct DNS records as shown in your Feather dashboard. Once the DNS changes propagate (which can take a few hours), the SSL certificate activates automatically. Your blog is now secure, and you didn't have to lift a finger. This "set it and forget it" model is the new standard for modern publishing platforms.

Right, you've got the certificate files uploaded and your server config is updated. That's a huge milestone, but we're not quite ready to pop the champagne. The job isn't truly done until you've run a few critical post-installation checks.

These final steps are what separate a "working" setup from a professional, genuinely secure one.

Give Your Setup a Full-Body Scan

First things first, you need to verify your work. And I don't just mean checking for the padlock in your own browser—you need a comprehensive, third-party analysis. This is where free online tools are your absolute best friend.

My go-to, and a tool trusted across the industry, is the SSL Labs' SSL Test from Qualys. Just plug in your domain name and let it run a deep scan of your server's entire SSL/TLS configuration. It'll check everything from certificate validity and protocol support to the strength of your key exchange and any known vulnerabilities.

What you're aiming for here is an 'A' grade. If you get anything less, don't sweat it. The report will tell you exactly why, pointing out things like support for old, insecure protocols (like SSLv3) or weak cipher suites. Fixing these is usually just a matter of adding a few lines to your server config, and it's essential for properly hardening your security.

Make HTTPS the Only Way In

Once your certificate is verified and looking sharp, the next job is to make sure everyone uses it. You need to ensure that every visitor—whether they type http:// or just your domain—is automatically whisked away to the secure https:// version of your site.

This is done with a permanent 301 redirect. This redirect tells browsers and, just as importantly, search engines that the HTTPS version is the official, canonical URL. It's a must-do for good SEO. The setup varies depending on your server:

Apache: You'll typically add a rewrite rule to your .htaccess file.

Nginx: You’ll add a new server block in your config file that listens on port 80 and redirects all traffic to its HTTPS counterpart.

Forcing HTTPS ensures no unencrypted connection ever slips through the cracks. Simple as that.

Hunt Down Mixed Content Errors

Ever land on an HTTPS site, only to see the browser padlock is broken or flashing a warning? Nine times out of ten, that's a mixed content error. It happens when a secure page tries to load insecure (http://) assets like images, scripts, or stylesheets.

These errors don't just look unprofessional; they can erode user trust and even open the door for attackers to compromise your page. The fix is to hunt down every single insecure URL in your codebase and change it to https://. Your browser's developer console (usually F12) is your best tool for this. The "Console" tab will flag every instance of mixed content, telling you exactly which resource is causing the trouble.

Put Your Renewals on Autopilot

Finally, let's think about the future. SSL certificates aren't a one-and-done deal; they expire. Commercial certificates usually last a year, but the free certificates from Let's Encrypt have a much shorter 90-day lifespan.

That short validity period is a security feature, but it makes manual renewals completely impractical. If you're using Let's Encrypt, setting up automated renewal is non-negotiable. Tools like Certbot are designed to run on a schedule (via a cron job), automatically checking for certs that are about to expire and renewing them without you lifting a finger. This "set it and forget it" approach is what keeps your site secure 24/7 and prevents that late-night panic when a cert expires and takes your site offline.

At Feather, we believe securing your blog should be the easiest part of your job. That's why we automatically provision, install, and renew SSL certificates for all custom domains, so you can focus on creating content, not managing configurations. Start your secure blog today.