301 redirect for Github Pages and CloudFlare SSL - redirect

Question

I am using Github Pages as my hosting site for my domain. The pages are hosted at username.github.io. As per github pages documentation I have put the CNAME file in the root directory pointing to example.com
And in my godaddy DNS manager I have added CNAME www to username.github.io
Later I switched to CloudFlare to use the Universal Free SSL for my Github Custom Domain page.
Currently the CloudFlare DNS Manager includes these two items:
A exmaple.com 192.30.252.153
CNAME www username.github.io
Since I have enabled SSL in cloudfare and redirect http (naked or otherwise) addresses to https, I have put a Page Rule as http://*example.com/* with Always use https turned on.
Now all types of addresses are getting redirected to https://example.com (this is my end requirement)
However the 301 redirection from http://www.example.com to https://example.com is happening this way:
http://www.example.com to
https://www.example.com/ to
http://example.com/ to
https://example.com/
This multiple redirection will affect the site loading speed if a user types the address as www.example.com. And (possibly?) these multiple redirections will affect page ranking in search sites.
Hence is it not better to put direct 301 instead of multiple? Or using multiple redirection is what normally all web-masters do in a situation like this?
If no, then someone please guide me to enable the 301 redirection from http://www.example.com directly to https://example.com/ without any multiple redirections.

Answer 1

You can set Page Rules in CloudFlare and change the order to your intended effect.
If this is still problematic you can also enable HSTS which will require the browser to access the HTTPS version after the first time you visit the site. This also makes the site more secure by not allowing anyone to man-in-the-middle your secure connections.