Adding an SSL certificate to your WordPress site is an excellent first step towards securing your data. You also have the option to add Cloudflare to your domain in addition to your SSL certificate. This allows you to take advantage of Cloudflare's services, while also continuing to secure your website. The following sections walk you through how to ensure Cloudflare is properly set up for your WordPress site.

View the following article for all steps you should first take to adjust your WordPress site to use an SSL certificate.

• How do I use an SSL certificate with WordPress?

When you enable Cloudflare in the DreamHost panel, your site must use the 'www' version of the URL. For example:

• www.example.com

If your site is currently NOT using the 'www' version, make sure that when you update the URLs in your database, you also include the www as part of the updated URL.

If you do not add www at this time, your site will throw a redirect error message after Cloudflare is added.

View the following article for instructions on how to add Cloudflare to your domain:

• How to enable Cloudflare on your domain

Make sure you've first reviewed the following articles:

Those two articles give you a general overview of how Cloudflare can be configured with SSL certificates. The rest of this article details exactly how to configure your Cloudflare account to work with your SSL certificate.

These steps assume you have installed either a 'free Let's Encrypt' or 'paid Sectigo' certificate.

1. Log into your Cloudflare account at https://dash.cloudflare.com/login.
2. You will see your website listed. Click your website.
3. In the top row, click the 'SSL/TLS' button.

4. You can see your SSL option listed. With a free Cloudflare account, it defaults to the 'Flexible' option.

5. Click the radio button titled 'Full (strict)'.

After a few hours, the DNS will update and all connections between the user, Cloudflare, and DreamHost will be secure.

• How to log into your WordPress site

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