When you are setting up SSL and you don’t have the green padlock go to https://www.whynopadlock.com.

To check your domain name server settings go to dnschecker.org.

To find out where a domain is parked go to https://whois.net/.

To check your IP address go to https://whatismyipaddress.com/.

To check the speed of a website:

• Website Speed Test Waterfall breakdown and website preview
• Google PageSpeed Insights Gives suggestion on how to make the page faster
• Dotcom-Tools Speed Test Check the speed of your website in 25 different locations in the world
• Pingdom: Test the load time of that page, analyze it and find bottlenecks.
• GTmetrix: Gives you insight on how well your site loads and provides actionable recommendations on how to optimize it.

To check if a website is down downdetector.com.

To generate an XML sitemap for your website: https://www.xml-sitemaps.com

To optimize your images: https://kraken.io/ or https://imagecompressor.com/

If your sent emails are going to spam use http://multirbl.valli.org/lookup/ to see if your IP address has been blacklisted.

1. Obtain an SSL certificate and install on your server.
(This is an great article about how to change to SSL.)

2. Type the new URL https://yoursitename.com into your browser to see if the green padlock appears. (If it does not you probably have mixed content. You can go to https://www.whynopadlock.com for more information and type in your domain name with the https in front of it. You will see what to fix. To fix the mix content easily you can use a plugin called Really Simple SSL. )

3. Once SSL is active and you see the green padlock then change the URLs on the Settings->General page to https from http.
(You will have to login after this. After logging in update your permalinks.)

4. Edit wp-config. Add the following code right above the Happy Blogging line:
define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);
(This will force all admin and login sessions to SSL.)

5. Set up 301 redirect in .htaccess file. Add the following code right above the # BEGIN WordPress line.
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://yoursite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

6. Add new site URL in Google Search Console.

(Here is the Google page with the FAQS on http to https migration.)
In Search Console press the “Add a Property Button” and add a completely new property with the new URL.

7. Add a sitemap to Search Console for your updated https url. I use Yoast for this.

To connect Google Search Console to the Yoast SEO plugin, all you have to do is navigate to this page in WordPress: SEO › Search Console. Click the Button that says “Reauthenticate”. Now click the button that says “Get Google Authorization Code and follow the instructions to allow Yoast access to your Search Console Account. Then copy the authorization code into the correct field. Next you need to change the profile to the new one you just created in step 5. Click “Save Profile.”

8. Change 3 settings in Google Analytics:

On the site property page click on the Admin Gear Icon to go to the Admin Page.
On the Admin page change the url in the “Property Settings” and the “View Settings”. Also under “Property Settings” click the “Adjust Search Console” button to change the search console to the new https url you set up in step #5. Here is an article about changing the settings in GA.

UPDATES:

May 2, 2019
March 14, 2019 (Pi Day!)

We all love Recaptchas but do not like how ugly they are. One way to also weed out spam submissions to your contact page is to add a Math Challenge question.

The steps for doing this are the same for Gravity Forms as well as Contact Form 7.

1. Add the Captcha field to your form. (Under Advanced Fields)
2. Upload the Plugin Really Simple Captcha from the WordPress Plugin Repository and Activate it.
3. Go back to your CAPTCHA field in Gravity Forms and Change the Type under the General Tab to Math Challenge

The plugin Really Simple Captcha integrates with Gravity Forms so that the Math Challenge is available as a Type of ReCaptcha.