On the surface, changing from http to https is pretty straightforward:

Purchase an SSL certificate,
Install your SSL certificate on your website’s hosting account,
Make sure that any website links are changed from http to https so they are not broken after you flip the https switch, and
Set up 301 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS so that search engines are notified that your site’s addresses have changed and so that anyone who has bookmarked a page on your site is automatically redirected to the https address after you flip the switch.

It’s just that easy. However, thanks to the overwhelming number of options offered by SSL certificate vendors and packages offered by hosting companies, this straightforward process can become very confusing.