{"id":550,"date":"2018-09-12T19:46:27","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T19:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.imadscotland.co.uk\/blog\/?p=550"},"modified":"2018-11-14T17:06:27","modified_gmt":"2018-11-14T17:06:27","slug":"why-every-site-needs-an-ssl-certificate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.imadscotland.co.uk\/blog\/why-every-site-needs-an-ssl-certificate\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Every Site Needs an SSL Certificate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been almost four years since Google first told everyone they should make the switch to HTTPS. In their passionate plea to website owners to create a more secure internet, they used a rallying cry that would surely go straight to the heart of everyone: HTTPS would become a ranking signal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WHY EVERY BUSINESS NEEDS SSL <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you sell things on your website, there\u2019s not even a debate. An SSL certificate is not optional. Since most payment gateways don\u2019t even work properly without an SSL, we don\u2019t need to convince the ecommerce folks out there to get one. So this is mostly for you lead generation and small business owner folks.   <\/p>\n<p>Remember back when a lot of businesses said they didn\u2019t need a website? And then they all said they didn\u2019t need a mobile-friendly website? Well, any business that\u2019s worth a grain of anything has a website now, and the ones who aren\u2019t mobile friendly are trailing far behind. The same thing is going to happen very soon with HTTPS. The websites that don&#8217;t have it will fall behind the competition. Search engines, users, and even browsers will soon heavily favor secure websites. It all comes down to security and trust. Customers won&#8217;t buy from you if they don&#8217;t trust you, and your website must be secure for your users to trust you. <\/p>\n<p><strong><br \/>\nDO IT FOR THE SEARCH ENGINES <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Google isn\u2019t going to stop pushing HTTPS. Since making the original announcement in 2014, Google has pushed HTTPS harder and harder. It is now a legitimate ranking factor  Originally used only as a tie-breaker when all other things were equal, it\u2019s now widely believed that SSL means more. In the search results below for &#8220;minneapolis web design,&#8221; the first six results are all HTTPS. Could that company down in position seven move up with an SSL certificate? That&#8217;s certainly a possibility, and it&#8217;s definitely a logical step in their SEO efforts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>DO IT FOR YOUR USERS <\/strong><br \/>\nDoing things for search is nice, but search engines don\u2019t help you pay the bills. Your customers do. Everything you do should ultimately be for the benefit of your customers. How does HTTPS help your customers? It tells them that your website is secure and that any information they share with you on that website will be secure.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, having an SSL certificate builds trust. Unsurprising fact of the day: when your customers trust you, they\u2019re far more likely to buy from you or use your services.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- responsive1 --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-slot=\"3379014842\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8934562929349122\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>DO IT FOR THE BROWSERS <\/strong><br \/>\nChrome, the most popular browser in the world, now tells your customers when your site is HTTPS or just plain old HTTP. At the moment, this doesn\u2019t mean all that much since the \u201cwarning\u201d is fairly innocuous. But later this year, Chrome is going to warn all users when a website is not using HTTPS with this scary message:<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s right. If your website isn\u2019t HTTPS, Chrome will immediately call attention to the fact that your site isn\u2019t secure. Over half your website visitors are going to see this message. What impact do you think this is going to have on your customers? Hint: it\u2019s going to cost you a lot of sales.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SO WHEN DO YOU REALLY NEED AN SSL CERTIFICATE? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re doubting whether or not you actually need an SSL for your business website, consider whether or not your website allows customers to do any of these things:   <\/p>\n<p>Make a purchase or submit credit card information<br \/>\nCreate an account<br \/>\nSubmit a contact form<br \/>\nSign up for a newsletter<br \/>\nSearch for something on your website  <\/p>\n<p><strong>If you have a website <\/strong><br \/>\nThere are no more excuses now. If you have a website and you want people to trust it, you have to be secure. <\/p>\n<p><strong><br \/>\nArticle Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.topbuzzmedia.net\/get-ssl-now\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">www.topbuzzmedia.net\/get-ssl-now\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been almost four years since Google first told everyone they should make the switch to HTTPS. In their passionate plea to website owners to create a more secure internet, they used a rallying cry&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":601,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.imadscotland.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.imadscotland.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.imadscotland.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.imadscotland.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.imadscotland.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.imadscotland.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.imadscotland.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.imadscotland.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.imadscotland.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.imadscotland.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}