{"id":1102,"date":"2019-09-10T08:04:20","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T15:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/?p=1102"},"modified":"2021-02-08T08:59:46","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T16:59:46","slug":"do-i-need-an-ssl-why-its-super-important-for-websites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/do-i-need-an-ssl-why-its-super-important-for-websites\/","title":{"rendered":"Do I need an SSL? Why it\u2019s super important for  websites"},"content":{"rendered":"SSL Certificates<\/a> used to be a luxury, an added extra that you could do without when trying to cut website costs. Then around 2017 things started changing. Today, an SSL is essential for any website. This is not marketing hype, it\u2019s just plain fact.\n\nSSL is short for Secure Socket Layer encryption. Here\u2019s why it\u2019s so important for websites:\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Website Trust<\/h2>\nSSL Certificates are vital for keeping website visitors secured. We\u2019ll get more granular about why in the following sections of this article, but the bottom line is that an SSL protects personal information as it travels from a customer\u2019s browser to a website. Without this protection, email addresses, credit card details, phone numbers etc. could all be hacked and used for criminal activity.\n\nThe padlock icon and \u2018https<\/strong>\/\/\u2019 in browsers when a website is accessed let\u2019s people know they\u2019re safe. You also get a site seal<\/a> from the Certificate Authority who issues the SSL to put on your website. There are added ways to make customers feel even safer to do with identity verification, which we\u2019ll also explain in this article. But the bottom line is: if a customer feels protected, they\u2019re more likely to engage with or buy from a website.\n

Data Encryption<\/h2>\nSo what is encryption all about? This technology basically turns data into meaningless nonsense, unless it\u2019s unlocked. SSL is a security measure that creates a safe connection between a web server and a web client using encryption. Once it\u2019s installed, the SSL Certificate protects the connection so that only the customer and the website Admin can see the unscrambled data, complete and unchanged. Data protection is the core job of SSLs.\n

Keeping Google Happy<\/h2>\nIn late 2017, the giant Google began championing a safe Internet \u2013 they started flagging websites that don\u2019t have SSL encryption as \u2018Not Secure\u2019. The last thing any website owner wants is for potential customers to click away because they see those scary words, right?\n

Search Ranking<\/h3>\nGoogle not only flags sites that don\u2019t have SSL encryption, they also rank them lower than protected websites. While the drop of about 3% – 5% may sound low, that\u2019s still a lot when you think about how companies spend big money on PPC to be seen at the top of a search result page. The higher you rank the more you convert customers. So even a small drop in search engine ranking can cause you to lose a significant share of audience and sales.\n

Identity Authentication<\/h3>\nAfter data protection, the second most important job an SSL Certificate does is to verify the legitimacy of a website. There are three types of identity authentication, performed by the Certificate Authority (CA) before they issue an SSL. These are also the three main differences between SSL Certificates:\n
    \n \t
  1. Domain Validation (DV) \u2013 the website domain is verified as legitimate.<\/li>\n \t
  2. Organization Validation (OV) \u2013 the site domain and business are verified. This let\u2019s customers know they\u2019re dealing with an officially registered company.<\/li>\n \t
  3. Extended Validation (EV) \u2013 the site domain, business, and public listing in one or more resources are verified. With this customers know that they\u2019re dealing with a well established company.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nIt used to be that EV Certificates could be seen in all browsers as a green bar with the company name. These days each type of browser displays the verification level differently. But people who want to be sure about their online safety can find out by clicking on the padlock icon and following the info trail specific to that browser. Ecommerce giants tend to use OV or EV SSLs to get maximum customer trust.\n

    Credit Card Payments<\/h3>\nThe Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is an information security organization for branded credit cards from the major providers. They have a list of security control requirements that ecommerce businesses need to have in place to protect customer credit card details. What it boils down to is this: if you accept popular credit card payments on your website, you have to be PCI compliant. And an SSL Certificate is one of the compliance requirements, because without it credit card data can be hacked.\n

    Take Away<\/h3>\nThere are five strong reasons why SSL Certificates are super important for websites. What is all comes down to is protection. SSL encryption secures customer information, which means a website that\u2019s safe to engage with and buy from. It\u2019s a win win for everyone.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    SSL Certificates used to be a luxury, an added extra that you could do without when trying to cut website costs. Then around 2017 things started changing. Today, an SSL is essential for any website. This is not marketing hype, it\u2019s just plain fact. SSL is short for Secure Socket Layer encryption. Here\u2019s why it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1102"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1513,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions\/1513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}