SSL Certificate ‰ÛÒ Can Your Business Afford to Be Without One?

Website security is a vital issue and most of your customers are tech-savvy enough to know this.  Since 2015 Google’s search results have favoured websites with HTTPS, the proof that communications and transactions are secure.

What is HTTPS and SSL?

HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure and is a sign that a website is authentic and associated with a web server which protects against attacks, ensuring the privacy and integrity of data exchanged with the website so that users may rest assured that their information is safe.

HTTPS connections were originally used for online payment transactions, email or sensitive information but its use is now widespread for protecting information and page authenticity on all types of websites.

SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer which is a standard encryption technology used to transfer data from a user’s browser to the web server.  The SSL Certificate is proof that a website is safe to use and is market in the URL with https://.

Google’s plan is to mark all HTTP sites as “not secure” as there is a possibility that HTTP pages that collect passwords, credit card details and other personal data may be stolen by hackers and misused.

Google Chrome (currently the most used web browser) is beginning to flag websites without a SSL Certificate, warning users that continuing to the website may result in an insecure connection so website owners need to take a proactive approach to make sure that their websites are guaranteed secure.

Any security warning from Google is likely to drive traffic away and negatively impact business.  At present, the URL bars of HTTP websites look like this:

However, as Chrome labels more HTTP pages as non-secure, the HTTP security indicator is changed to the red triangle that’s used for broken HTTPs and potential visitors see this:

This means that migrating to HTTPS is essential if you want to do business online in the future – fix it now before it begins to have a detrimental effect on your traffic, your sales and your business.  You will need to obtain an SSL Certificate and update it annually in order to guarantee your website’s security.

How do you do that?  Just contact us now and we’ll take care of this for you and protect your website from negative impact in the future.

Richard Coen

With over 21 years of experience in Digital Marketing, 31 years in sales and 25 years in business development, Richard assists companies to develop key growth strategies on a local or international basis. He can assist marketers to achieve balance in their approach to key areas affected by the growth in digital marketing.