In recent months website security has been all over the news. It’s hard to decipher what’s really happening and what’s paranoia. You may be wondering what exactly is an SSL certificate? It stands for Secure Sockets Layer. There are many technical terms that I won’t use, and I will make it as simple as possible.

Your website is published online where anyone can go to your URL and view your page. When you purchase an SSL, you will get awarded a certificate that is read by your browser and it will display a green lock that indicates your website is secure as well as changing your URL from HTTP to HTTPS. To get the certificate, you must be able to confirm that you own your site. Your registrar will confirm these details either by email or phone. The SSL certificate will encrypt the information that is sent to the server from your site and that’s important because it makes your data more secure and adds a layer of protection from hackers.

Source: https://seopressor.com

According to sources from Google in June 2018, Google will start to flag and warn users about any site that is not secured by an SSL certificate. This is the main reason why you may want to have an SSL on your site since users may be scared off about submitting their information to request a quote or more information on your site. This will negatively impact the number of leads that are submitted on your website. Another downside is that not having an SSL will decrease your SEO rankings.

Google is trying to improve website security and since they are the biggest search engine it is forcing millions of websites to become more secure. Many website owners may not like the fact that you might have to pay extra money to have an SSL Certificate installed and depending on your hosting provider there might be some back-end configurations that will need to be done. On the flip side once, you have your SSL certificate installed on your site you will begin to build trust and have more leverage on your brand online. Having the SSL certificate shows that you care about your clients and protecting their data.

This is one step closer to having a more secure environment online. You may want to contact your internet marketing provider to have them set you up with an SSL certificate on your website. I would suggest getting an SSL certificate before July 2018, because there will be a bigger demand once Google rolls out with the update.

featured image source: Logic Web Media