Google is putting more emphasis on security. One of the new factors that they will be giving more weight to in their ranking signal is if your website hosted on an HTTPS.
So now having your website hosted on a server with an SSL installed will score you some brownie points with Google. Not to mention the warm fuzzies your visitors will get when they see that nice padlock icon next to your domain name.
So what does it mean to have your website hosted on an HTTPS? Well for the long definition you can check out wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPS. But to keep things simple, basically having an SSL installed on your server created an encrypted tunnel between your website and where you are sending the data. For example if your customer makes a purchase on your website. Their personal and Credit Card information will be sent from your website to your your Merchant's website. Because the information is being sent through that encrypted tunnel. The Bad Guys can't steal it route to it's destination.
First lets talk Cons:
- You will need to purchase and have an SSL installed on your server.
- You will need to have your SSL renewed when it expires.
- External resources used on your website will need to be also hosted on an SSL. I.e. embedded videos, and scripts. This usually isn't too big an issue anymore.
Ok now the Pros:
- Your visitors will feel safer and thus your conversions will increase 🙂
- SEO benefits. As we have been discussing Google is starting to give more and more weight to having an your website hosted on an HTTPS in their ranking algorithms. Check out Google article that talks more about this HTTPS as a ranking signal.
- All data transferred on your website will be encrypted. So when someone purchased, or opts in on your website. Their info will passed through an encrypted tunnel to it's destination. This keeps the bad guys from getting their grubby mitts on the data.
If have questions or need an SSL installed on your website. Feel free to leave comment, chat us or stop by our contact page.