Many of you may have heard the term SSL without understanding its significance. Today we want to explain the importance of SSL for your website.
The starting point would be to explain what SSL stands for and what it does.Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is used to secure any data sent across the internet from your computer to the destination server. Credit card details are the obvious first thought here, but think of passwords too, and any other sensitive personal data. This also brings up the issue of GDPR compliance – as most sites have at least an enquiry form where customers contact you with their personal information, you need to be sure this data is securely transmitted.
Having SSL on your website means that information sent from it is encrypted with random letters and characters being inserted into the original information. This makes it unreadable to everyone except the intended recipient. SSL makes it almost impossible for hackers to get at your information.
Why SSL is now the rule for all websites
Don’t think that because your site is not e-commerce you don’t need SSL, this is not the case. You want people to contact you through a contact form on your website (let’s face it most websites have one), or sign up for your newsletter, right? Having SSL will show that you are a company who cares about its customers, showing that you are trustworthy, giving people confidence to make contact.
Google recognises the importance of SSL on your website
You’ve all seen the little green padlock symbol beside the URL in the search results bar. This tells you that the website has SSL installed making it a secure site. Since 2017 Google have been labelling websites without SSL as ‘Not Secure’. Obviously this is going to be bad for business. When internet browsers see the red warning triangle and ‘Not Secure’ they will more than likely move on to the next website in the search results, quite possibly your competitor, and that can mean business is lost.
SSL & SEO
Even if you don’t fully understand how SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) works, most of you know the importance of it to get your website up the rankings. Keep in Google’s good books by installing SSL on your website; you can even get a small boost to your ranking. Google says that a website that is SSL protected is ‘trusted and certified’ and so will rank these sites higher than those that are unprotected.
That little green padlock indicating that your website is SSL certified instantly tells web browsers that your company is authentic.
To round things off Installing an SSL certificate will:
- Encrypt sensitive data
- Ensure the information goes to its intended recipient
- Promotes customer confidence and trust
- Helps with SEO
- Protects you from cyber criminals
Now that we’ve helped you to understand the importance of SSL for your website, you’ll want to know how to install it.
There are different levels of SSL so the best course of action is to talk to the team at Barry Design. We can set up the correct SSL for your business and renew the certificate each year (there is an annual fee for this), keeping you in the green and your website visitors confident in using your trusted and secure website.
