5 reasons why your website should have an SSL certificate installed
7th December 2020
Google encourages site owners to have an SSL certificate installed. They reflect this is their Chrome browser and in the way they rank websites in organic Search Engine Results (SERPs).
But, what's in it for you? Here are five reasons you want to have a secure website.
Sales
If you're selling products or services, SSL is essential. Without, it could damage your brand - you don't want to be known for being a website that doesn't keep its visitors' personal information secure.
There's so much talk now about cybercrime and staying safe online. Your website visitors are more cautious than ever about having their details stolen and rightly so. According to Security magazine, there is a hacker attack every 39 seconds. So make sure you keep your SSL up to date and your customers happy to keep the clients piling in.
That 'not secure' message will almost definitely lose you business. Once you've installed an SSL certificate, conversions and confidence will increase.
SEO rankings
Is SSL a search engine ranking factor? Yes - Google says so itself.
Google takes a lot into consideration when deciding search results, but this safety 'passport' is an easy way to boost your position. Google prioritises those sites that are deemed safe, which is why SSL is worth having - even for blogs.
It will help push your site higher up the results pages when people search, so it's more likely to be found in Google's organic search engine results (SERP).
If rankings are something you're really keen to boost, it may even be worth encrypting every page for added SEO value.
Again, we do this as standard practice on an it'seeze website. SSL is included with every website we host.
It helps with GDPR and PCI compliance.
We've all been bombarded with a lot of information over GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) these past few years. SSL is yet another way to ensure your business is compliant.
GDPR rules don't implicitly say you must install SSL, but it does ask to ensure you keep processed or collected data of individuals secure. SSL is one easy way to do that if you're taking payments or even just names and email addresses.
It's not just GDPR you need to consider either. If you are taking payments on your website from credit cards, you need to be PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant too.
Having an SSL certificate is just one tick box you need to check to allow you to meet the set PCI criteria.
Trust
To build a relationship with clients and to deserve repeat business, you need to build trust.
If a cyber attacker takes a customer's details from your website, you can guarantee they won't be returning. But you need their trust before you make it as far as a sale. If your website is flagged as untrustworthy from the get-go with an insecure connection message, you've got a suspicious customer who may turn back and go elsewhere.
Imagine that person then tells someone else your website is unsafe. Word of mouth is so powerful, and you want the message spread far and wide about how great your blog, service, or products are, not that your website is risky.
Business clients may know even more about SSL. The certificate is the approval they need to validate your business's authenticity, in turn, bringing trust to your (hopefully) ongoing relationship.
It's not just SSL that makes your business authentic though. There are so many factors to make you look professional and trustworthy. This is why we provide website health checks to audit your website for best practices, including security.
Enhance website performance
There really is nothing worse than a slow website. We live in a world where things move quickly, and it is infuriating when a site is loading painfully slowly. If it takes more than a few seconds, you can wave goodbye to that conversion, visitor and sale.
There are many factors that go into how fast a page loads, but one of those is having an encrypted connection.
An SSL certificate will encrypt data to help speed up loading, which in turn, will attract visitors and encourage them to return thanks to the quick, effortless service.
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