You can never go over the top when it comes to strong web security. Cases of attacks that compromise the financial and personal information of visitors have become commonplace. Installing a Secured Socket Layer (SSL) certificate is the right step towards providing a strong security cover to your website and is now easily available for free or paid from SSL Certificate providers.
Don’t let the name deter you, it’s not as complicated as it sounds. An SSL certificate is a small data file that allows encrypted communication between a web server and a visitor’s browser. It digitally binds transmitted information to a cryptographic key.
Without it, the connection isn’t secure. Having a secure connection will bring in other benefits to your businesses as well.
Protection of Sensitive Information
An SSL certificate will protest your business and all of its sensitive info, as well as your clients and customers. In fact, it protects all online activity of your business. All the exchanged information between the sender and the recipient requires authentication. The authentication prevents any third party from seeing or stealing the encrypted data.
Phishing Scams
A business takes a huge hit when it falls victim to a cyber-attack. By making sure that your website and its visitors are protected from a criminal activity you are also protecting your brand’s reputation and market share.
SSL helps safeguard against the armies of mischievous scammers and hackers that are praying on members of various websites. Phishing scams are devised to steal sensitive information such as passwords, IDs, credit card numbers, and other, personal data.
Business Credibility
The certificate offers your website an air of authenticity. Your business will get the certificate only after its validated by a governing authority, which takes several identity checks. In other words, you have to be a legitimate company to get it.
Once you have it, the visitors will easily recognize it. It tells them that your site is trustworthy. They are far more likely to use your services in that case.
Trust is even more important when your clients are entrusting their hard-earned money to you, and not just joining your platform to become members of your forum. Without proper guarantees, visitors might consider your website to be shady and avoid it entirely.
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Let’s say you are running an online casino. If your clients know they are safe, they are more likely to leave good online casino reviews which will only add to your reputation.
Ethics and Professionalism
Customers appreciate it when a company demonstrates its ethical side. The fact that you are doing everything to provide a stringent security cover is an indicator of strong business ethics.
Increased Sales
It is known that there is a direct connection between trust and revenue. Once the cert is in place, you can expect it to lead to higher conversion rates, as well as help expand your customer base.
SEO Boost
No site owner could say no to a higher ranking on the most popular search engines. Google is pretty straightforward about rewarding sites that have SSL certificates.
So much so that, in 2014 the search engine giant started giving HTTPS websites a boost in search results. The year after, the company released a statement in which it admitted to giving search priority to more secure websites.
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As of 2018, Google is flagging every site which does not have an SSL/TLS Certificate. Such behavior is likely to continue in the future.
Failing to Comply
Chances are, you have been using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox to browse the internet. While doing so, you might have received a warning saying “site not secure” when trying to access a certain page.
That’s right: the browser will make sure the visitor knows the site isn’t safe when there is no SSL certificate. That’ doesn’t only go for e-commerce sites.
On the other hand, if the site has been secured properly, Chrome will display a small green icon on the right side of the URL bar, telling the users they can trust you. One can say, without a doubt, that search engines and browsers are not only rewarding the sites with proper security installed but are also punishing the ones without it.
Identity Affirmation
When it comes to web security, identity verification is one of the most important aspects. An SSL cert is a proof that your company is a legally accountable entity and that it has the right to use the domain name.
The internet can be a deceptive place, there’s no doubt about it. There have been cases in which visitors lost significant amounts of money on fake sites.
You’d want your customers to be sure that they are dealing with you, and not scammers. Consider it as having a verified Twitter account. If the account isn’t verified, who is to say it isn’t run by an impostor?
Conclusion
To run a business successfully, you must put yourself in your customers’ shoes. All users want to have peace of mind when it comes to online security. If you put their safety above everything else, they will make sure to reward you.
| About the Guest Author:
Emma Sumne
