SSL Certificates have always had a significant impact on a website’s credibility, especially on those websites which handle sensitive users’ information, such as credit card details and personal information. However, with Chrome flagging all HTTP websites as not secure, an SSL Certificate became one of the key elements when launching a website, and a must-have for all webmasters. With this unexpected and unprecedented increase in the importance of an SSL Certificate, you must not only know about how to choose the best SSL Certificate for your website but also when is the best time for you to buy an SSL Certificate.

The best time for making a decision about what SSL Certificate you need is before launching your website. The best time to buy an SSL Certificate is when your website’s core and its most significant sections have been developed and implemented.

An SSL Certificate should be part of your web development

You need to install your SSL Certificate on your website while you are still developing it, in order to make sure that your website works perfectly with it, that all your website’s pages and links work fine, and that the SSL Certificate successfully secures your entire website, and it shows no security warnings in all major web and mobile browsers.

There are several reasons for picking this particular time to buy and install your SSL Certificate. Let us explain why further. Once your website is almost ready to be launched, you will know the answers to the following questions:

  1. What kind of validation does your website need. Should it be a Domain Validation (DV), Business Validation (BV), or Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificate? The answer depends on whether you have a registered company or not.
  2. The need of validating only one domain or multiple domains. It will be easier for you to choose between a One-Domain, One Domain and Multiple Sub-Domains (Wildcard), Multi-Domains (UCC/SAN) SSL Certificate once you know how many domains and sub-domains you want to secure with one single SSL Certificate;
  3. What kind of level of encryption you need. It depends on whether your website is a simple blog with very little security needs or an online store. Maybe your website will enable users to access their private e-money accounts? Based on what type of information you need to store, your website will need a certain level of encryption and a specific SSL Certificate for that;
  4. The necessity of displaying a Trust Seal on your website. Is your website selling goods and you need to raise the level of trust of your potential customers? If yes, then you definitely need to display a Trust Seal from a well-known Certificate Authority such as DigiCert.

Final Thoughts

The perfect time to buy an SSL Certificate is when your website is almost finished and ready to be launched. At that point, you will be completely sure about your website’s security requirements.
But what if you already have a website and you need an SSL Certificate for it? In this case, you can check our list with SSL Certificates that we offer. Once you buy an SSL Certificate from us, make sure you follow these guidelines about how to properly move from HTTP to HTTPS easily and with no pain.