WordPress Emergency Action!! FREE SSL Method For Facebook Deadline

I know many are concerned over the impending Facebook Oct 1 deadline for secure https content on their Facebook pages.

I'm getting a lot of questions about it in my support system, and the closer we get the more frantic some of the questions are.

This post is about my experience with securing my own WordPress Theme's Facebook page content using a very simple but Free service, and it took literally 5 to 10 minutes to set up.

BACKGROUND

The background to this is that I am using my own WordPress based site to serve content on Facebook pages through a standard Facebook App that creates a Facebook page tab.

My original intent was to purchase SSL to secure the domain that the WordPress theme is on in order to be able to meet Facebook's requirements, however, on seeing that some of my customers were concerned about paying for SSL to secure their domains using the Theme on their own sites in order to meet the Oct 1 deadline, I looked into and found a nice Free alternative.

Without getting into a debate on paid vs free SSL - my intent here is to just show the Free method that worked for my WordPress Theme, and I am sure it would work for any other WordPress Theme, product or plugin that is used to manage Facebook page content.

Basically this could be your EMERGENCY ACTION plan if you have not yet sorted out your https security for your Fanpage content using WordPress.

If your just using html sites to serve your facebook content, I'm sure this method will also work for you.

THE METHOD

Here we go...

This method involves a Free service provided at Social-Server.com

Disclaimer!! I don’t give any guarantees about this service, and I’m not affiliated with it – all I can say is that it was extremely easy to use – and it works with my WordPress Theme.

I recommend that once you have set this up, that you still look the range of SSL options out there that may suit your business in the long term – however, in the short term this Free method will at least give you the ability to set up quickly for Facebook’s Oct 1st deadline, and then take the time to take a look at other options if required.

But in saying that, the guys running the Free service seem very authentic, and I have no reason to belive that they won't be around for a long time. Anyway - I'm sure you can make your own decisions on that...

Firstly, before you start, I’m assuming you have a WordPress based Fanpage product (or html for that matter), and have already created a Facebook App for your content to show on a Facebook page and all is working OK.

Here’s how to do it:

Step 01: Read about the Social Server service on their website at http://www.social-server.com/index/index.php

Step 02: Sign up for free at the Social Server User Consol at https://www.facebook.com/SocialServe...29405620492063

Step 03: Go to your Facebook App that you have already set up and click on the Page Tab section and copy the Page Tab URL.

Step 04: Go back to the Social Server User Consol and paste the Page Tab URL in where it says to do so and click the green tick.

Step 05: Copy the newly made Secure URL.

Step 06: Go to your Facebook App and paste the Secure URL into the Secure Page Tab URL field in the Page Tab section and click the Save button.

OPTIONAL STEPS:

Step 07: On your Facebook App at the top – copy your App ID.

Step 08: Go back to the Social Server User Consol and paste the App ID into the App ID box under your secure URL.

Step 09: Still on the Social Server User Consol next the the App ID for your secure URL change the Width: (px) and the Height: (px) if you need to make your content fit better in your Facebook page, then click the yellow circle update arrows.

ADDITIONAL STEPS

If you have a Canvas URL as well, just follow the same steps above to create, copy and paste your secure canvas url into your Facebook App.

Depending on what WordPress or html based product you are using to create your Facebook page content, you may also need to do minor tweaks to it's settings of the product to tie it all in.

CONCLUSION

All in all this was very easy to do, and I hope for any of you that are struggling with the Facebook Oct 1 deadline, that even if you miss the deadline day - this will still help fix your unsecure content to be compatible with Facebook's requirements.

Thats it!!

Regards,

Leon