How to set SSL in Magento

The private SSL certificate is an important upgrade to your website. The basic function of an SSL is to encrypt all communication between the browser and the server, ensuring that all data goes through a secure (HTTPS) connection. An SSL certificate is a necessity when you want to operate an online shop and process the sensitive customers data through your software. It helps you gain your clients’ trust and increase your web site’s search engines rank.

The certificate could be easily enabled through the Magento Admin area -> System -> Configuration -> Web.
There you can define the insecure (non-SSL) and secure (SSL) URLs

In the Base URL fields you should enter the unsecure (regular) web site URL and the web site URL for the SSL connections. You can leave the other values unchanged, as they will be set automatically by the script after you enter the Base URL. Basically the other fields define the URLs of the main Magento store page and the URLs of the skin, media and JavaScript folders. The drop-down menus allow you to enable and disable the SSL support for the web site’s frontend and backend.