Who Needs an SSL Certificate? You Do.

We live in a society that is increasingly reliant on the internet. As more people go online for their various needs, progressively more digital business is being conducted – resulting in the need for your business to be on top of the continually rising wave of internet commerce. How can you ensure that your online business stands out among such a crowded pool of competition? The answers to that are many, but for the sake of brevity, let’s focus on a simple, though incredibly important, step to improving your online business: acquiring an SSL Certificate. 

Here are a few things you should know about it:

It protects your website visitors.

An SSL Certificate changes the “http://” on your website link to “https://” (hypertext transfer protocol secure), and essentially keeps private any important information used in the traffic on your webpage (i.e. passwords, usernames, Credit Card numbers, etc.). It works as a padlock, providing a secure connection between the server and the browser, and adds more protection on users’ valuable information. This is something you should consider if an online business is something you plan to launch or are currently operating. SSL Certificates also operate as extra safeguards against hackers and phishing (the image provided by Netgrains is a great illustration of this concept). Ultimately, the goal of an SSL Certificate is to ensure secure internet communication, which is extremely valuable if you intend to conduct any kind of transaction through your webpage. As a business, you want your customers to feel safe enough to trust their most important information with you, hopefully, make repeated purchases, and even bring in more potential customers. By having an SSL Certificate, you are not only protecting your business and your customers, but you are also communicating with them that you value their business. 

It increases your SEO.

Once the SSL is installed and configured, its security has the potential to increase your SEO, or search engine optimization. With the increase in eCommerce, people are understandably becoming more concerned with the safety of their information. Therefore, the security of your webpage with an SSL is likely to gain more web traffic than others without it, as people tend to frequent sites that they trust. Interestingly, in order to ensure that all transactions are safe and secure, Google implemented the HTTPS as a ranking signal in 2014. Although small for the time being, it allows webpages with an SSL to rank higher in Google’s search results system than those without one. Seeing as Google holds the torch on internet search and cloud technology, this has the potential to be a crucial factor in the increase of traffic on your webpage. With the SSL Certificate secured on your website, Chrome and Firefox will also show on the left side of your address bar (where you type a website link) a green light, a padlock, or some other means to notify users of the security of your page. This makes it very simple for visitors to assess the safety of your page, and decide what to do with their business accordingly. The goal for your webpage is to do everything possible to make sure they choose to give you their business, and an SSL can help give the extra nudge you need to make that happen. 

It’s Never The Wrong Time

While your current site can be secured at any point, it is especially advantageous to consider installing an SSL Certificate when launching a new website. Google loves sites that are active and evolving and focuses energy on crawling new webpages and content. So, launching a new, secure website will set you up for immediate success with some extra SEO juice from Google. 

At STORY, we pride ourselves in making sure businesses are achieving maximum and optimal success through their websites, focusing on the minutiae of the process. An SSL is one of those small details that can set your business apart, and push your webpage towards the top. If you’re interested in setting one up for your website, we would love to help. Contact STORY today. 

Sources:

https://security.googleblog.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal_6.html

https://www.inc.com/business-insider/amazon-google-most-valuable-brands-brand-finance-2018.html