You may have heard people urging you to switch your website to the HTTPS security encryption. They cite Google’s announcement that HTTPS is a ranking signal and that failure to switch could mean your ranking will take a hit.
Let’s face it, until recently, HTTPS was really used only by ecommerce sites for their payment pages. Things can get confusing, and the question many business owners face is whether or not the hassle of switching to HTTPS is worth it.
HTTP stands for hypertext transfer protocol. It’s a protocol that allows communication between different systems. Most commonly, it is used for transferring data from a web server to a browser to view web pages.
The problem is that HTTP (note: no "s" on the end) data is not encrypted, and it can be intercepted by third parties to gather data being passed between the two systems.
This can be addressed by using a secure version called HTTPS, where the "S" stands for secure.
This involves the use of an SSL certificate -- "SSL" stands for secure sockets layer -- which creates a secure encrypted connection between the web server and the web browser.
Without HTTPS, any data passed is insecure. This is especially important for sites where sensitive data is passed across the connection, such as ecommerce sites that accept online card payments, or login areas that require users to enter their credentials. Simply put, the strongest case for switching to HTTPS is that you are making your website more secure.
Sure, there are limits to this. HTTPS is not like a web application firewall. It’s not going to prevent your website from getting hacked. It’s not going to stop phishing emails getting sent, either.
If you’re using a content management system (CMS), like WordPress, or you have any other login where you host any kind of sensitive data, then setting up a secure HTTPS login is the absolute minimum precaution you should take. In reality, HTTPS is the basic price of security these days. It’s the very minimum you can offer your visitors.
Aside from security, HTTPS also improves trust.
According to research performed by GlobalSign, more than 80 percent of respondents would abandon a purchase if there was no HTTPS in use.
That’s fine for ecommerce merchants, but does HTTPS improve conversion and trust for businesses which don’t take online payments? There is evidence that the use of security seals can improve lead generation by over 40 percent.
Not only do your visitors pay attention to your site's security, but so does Google. Security is at the heart of what Google does these days. That’s why the company has listed HTTPS as a ranking factor.
HTTPS offers the base level of website security. Whether or not you should switch to HTTPS is a decision increasingly being driven by Google’s search algorithm.
Switching to HTTPS is fairly straightforward for smaller websites. For larger websites, it’s more complicated, from an SEO perspective and requires skilled technical staff to make the changes. Using HTTPS will increasingly be the norm rather than the exception, and you should plan to migrate sooner rather than later.
Courtesy of Entrepreneur
