If you're relatively new to web development, you might not know exactly what kinds of benefits that using an HTTPS connection might provide. In this new article from the SitePoint PHP blog, Mufleeh Sadique covers some of the basics of HTTPS and gives some reasons why to "go HTTPS" in your applications.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure or Hypertext Transfer Protocol over SSL is used for secure communication over a network, or perhaps more importantly – over the Internet. You would see https:// in the URI and a lock icon in the browser when you access a page that uses HTTPS. [...] If you ever wondered whether and how to go HTTPS with your website, we’ll attempt to clear this up in this article by briefly describing what HTTPS is about, and why and how to implement it.

He's broken the rest of the article up into a few different sections. The first answers the question "why HTTPS" with a few reasons including the most important - encrypted communication. In the second section, he starts showing you how to "go HTTPS" using a self-signed certificate to start. With the certificate installed, he moves into the last part, ensuring your application is always using the HTTPS version and redirecting anything else.