Consider your website to be a virtual catalogue of products and services that you are offering through your business. Hence, it’s pertinent that your website is user-friendly and responsive while being captivating enough to make the visitors stay. Another important factor to consider from a user’s perspective is security. You should focus on increasing the trust of the customers not only with the products or services that you provide but also with the personal details that are shared when they reach your landing page.
When browsing through the internet, you leave behind digital traces that websites can use to keep track of your activities. Anytime a visitor navigates through your website, then data like their IP address, advertisements they have clicked on, etc. gets transferred from one server to other. So, the discussion shifts to how we can secure this information.
As Google’s SEO ranking algorithm is always being updated, one of the updates is the inclusion of SSL certificate to increase the trust of visitors and also boost ranking. On 7th August 2014, Google launched SSL certificate and confirmed that websites with an SSL certificate (https://) would get an added advantage in the search engine ranking. You may have noticed that some URLs start with http:// while others start with https:// and wondered what the meaning of an extra “s” is. The extra “s” means that your connection to the website is secured and encrypted. As malicious attacks become more widespread and advanced, security is becoming more important than ever. So, in the beginning of July 2018, Google made SSL certificate compulsory for websites to encrypt sensitive information and those lacking this certificate will be flagged with a warning in the URL bar of the user’s browser. Let’s discuss ahead how SSL certificates boost rankings and improve Google SEO rank.
What is SSL certificate?
SSL stands for “Secured Sockets Layer”. It represents an additional layer of safety and security that protects the user’s data shared with a website when choosing to buy a product or availing of a service. It is a text file with encrypted data that you install on your server. The SSL authenticates a website’s identity and allows you to secure sensitive information, communications, etc. between your website and your target audience.
With SSL, you can establish a secure connection with the web servers and thus the users will be connected to a cryptographic encryption key. Having a properly designed website, appropriately organized content, you wish to have high website traffic and work on SEO plans to convert the leads into customers. But think of the fact that, the user searches a query in the search engine and finds that your website has ‘http’ and not ‘https’. Earlier the visitors may have moved ahead even with the ‘http’ link but now the users will not reach your landing page as they think the website is not secured enough and this would potentially affect your brand image, search engine ranking, conversion rate, etc. The Google browser, Chrome, itself will warn the visitor from visiting your website as a potential risk bearer. When there is SSL encrypted with your website they feel secured that they are landing on a reliable website and can even continue to fill the forms, receive newsletter, etc.
SEO benefits of SSL certificate
Most website owners are confused whether SSL good for their SEO or not. This is the reason that still only 1.9% of the top 1million websites redirect users to a default https version. But now that ‘http’ is archaic, website owners have to include ‘https’ in their URL to display the content to the visitors. SSL certificates are being sought-after by all business websites as Google has made it crystal clear that website owners with SSL will be provided with a slight boost in ranking. The aim of Google is to make the website fully reliable by protecting the privacy of the customers and the benefits of having an SSL are mentioned below:-
1. Protects consumer data- SSL encrypts important transactional data so that only the relevant financial authorities can reveal and see the details of the statement. Many a time we hear about the company’s secured data being breached and the prime reason being the lack of an SSL certificate. Every piece of information is kept private and encrypted in a format that hackers do not understand. Customer’s data like ID, password, etc. are very precious for a company and SSL helps in protecting such details. To protect your consumer’s data from unauthorized access you can consider creating accounts for administrators and giving them access to specific sections like product specifications, orders, etc.
2. Encrypts sensitive information– The main purpose of an SSL certificate is to connect the web servers and the user’s browser. After the SSL certificate is installed, the data between the servers and users will be exchanged in an encrypted way. This helps to secure sensitive users’ details such as login credentials, bank details, bank card numbers, atm pin, etc. so that unauthorized users cannot interpret and use the data. The lock icon that users see on SSL-secured websites and the “https” address indicates that the connection is secured. The websites with a green address bar have an Extended Validation SSL-secured website. The sensitive information makes the customer trustworthy of the website and a permanent customer in the long run.
3. Enhances search engine rankings- SSL certificates will have an added advantage over other websites that are not encrypted and secured, considering other SEO ranking factors remain the same. It would be hard to judge the precise impact of SSL on a website’s search engine ranking when compared with other websites in the similar niche with thousands of more powerful backlinks. If your website is on HTTPS, you can see the traffic in Google Analytics and work on digital marketing strategies to improve your search rankings. Therefore, having an SSL not only improves your SEO ranking to the top of search engine result pages but will provide a much needed boost to stay ahead of your competitors.
4. Improves the speed of website– SSL not only improves Google SEO rank but also provides an edge over websites without SSL encryption. Websites having ‘HTTPS’ have higher ranks in the search engines and customers have a belief that the communication with your web server is more secure. One of the key benefits of using SSL is it works with HTTP/2 as it has a key focus on improving the speed of the websites. With an SSL certificate, your site will be able to make use of HTTP/2 as it helps in faster webpage loading speed.
5. SSL provides authentication– SSL is very important to boost SEO ranking. This works as a security protocol particularly designed to encrypt the data transferred between the website server and the visitor’s browser so that the hackers do not access, read, and change the data in transit. The SSL certificate is issued only to a verified company after the verification process is completed and this is only possible when the SSL certificate is provided by a reputed and trusted SSL provider. These certificates provide authentication and protect the confidentiality of the website communicating with the internet browsers.
How SSL certificate boosts ranking
With the internet searches rapidly increasing, a huge number of businesses today are adapting the SSL certificate into their platforms to increase security and it also enhances their search engine rankings with the help of various web hosting services. There are various SSL certificates that come at different prices. While selecting an SSL certificate, you should investigate about the popularity of the organization, expense of the certificates, and other distinctive points to ensure that you may get a great deal. The SSL certificate increases the company’s credibility and boosts SEO rankings. Here are some points on how an SSL certificate escalates your website SEO ranking.
• Enhanced digital security- An SSL certificate ensures that the data transmitted between your website and a server are secured from hackers. It prevents interference by third parties and access is granted only when the pop-up request is accepted by the server. It encrypts Universal Resource Locators (URLs), which safeguards things such as credit card and debit card numbers, surfing history, etc. It makes your website more protected and ensures security to visitors. This helps the SEO website to rank higher in the SERPS.
• Increases trust of customers– To keep visitors on your site and make them your customers in the long run, you need to give them the confidence that the transactions from your website is completely safe. To maintain your website’s good reputation and increase online sales you need an SSL certificate. The lock icon next to your URL gives the visitors the confidence that the website is legitimate and they move ahead thus increasing the chances of finally getting converted to customers.
Without SSL, many potential visitors might be leaving your website without clicking on anything. Google itself says, if you try to navigate to a site that is running on only HTTP using Chrome, you’ll be displayed with an intimidating screen with a warning symbol. It warns you that the connection is not secure. So with an SSL certificate, the trust of customers on your website increases and also boosts the SEO ranking of your site.
• Enhances user experience– When a visitor lands on a website, the visible indicators inform whether the site is safe or not and the person should continue browsing or not. Suppose a user searches for a particular keyword and finds your website via Google search engine results. After reaching the homepage the visitor intends to fill a form and is instantly greeted with an indicator that the website is not secure. This happens as the website is unencrypted and the user did not know about the security of the website at the starting. So the focus should be to enhance the user experience by including the HTTPS at the starting to make sure that the user gets to know about the security of the website at the very beginning. This helps in increasing traffic, creating backlinks, increasing link building, higher engagement rate, etc.
• Confirms your business identity- When you install an SSL Certificate, an independent third-party agency called a Certificate Authority (CA) validates you. This not only helps to boost ranking of your SEO but also ensures that the visitors trust your website. The visitors when they make a purchase and are satisfied with your products or services, then they become partial promoters of your business and help in peer-to-peer marketing.
Once you verify your identity to their strict standards, they provide you with online trust documentation, vouching for your identity. This prevents hackers from reaching your website and even be ahead of your competitors who haven’t yet certified their SEO with an SSL certificate. This secures the data of your customers and builds your website’s business identity. You should consider performing a timely SEO audit, working on broken links, plan link building techniques to take the utmost benefit of Google SEO ranking and increase your business identity.
• Reduces bounce rate– If you haven’t installed an SSL on your site, visitors will see a warning in the address bar saying ‘Not Secure’ with a red ‘X’. Depending on what services you provide like white label e-commerce services, white label email marketing, white label content marketing, etc. the lack of SSL is likely to make the visitors leave your website and navigate away. This affects your search engine optimization (SEO), as your bounce rate on the website increases and affects your website’s Google SEO rank. You should even consider optimizing your website for mobile devices as the search engine ranking of your website depends on mobile–first indexing which was launched by Google on 1st July, 2019.
If you have a page that is having a good click-through rate and ranks well but has a high bounce rate, then Google thinks that your site isn’t giving users the information they are looking for and chances of lower search engine ranking increases. Higher click-through rates are a sign that the users are finding the content they are looking for and helps in lead generation, increase impressions, quality score, etc. but with the lack of SSL visitors may lack the confidence to keep going on your site.
Round off
Web security plays a vital role in the success of any website. If you wish your website to thrive in today’s digital world you need to have an encrypted website. SSL certificate for your website provides you with this feature and secures data shared between your web server and user’s browser. This helps in increasing traffic and revenue for the website. The prime focus should be to secure your website from Google’s warning message “Not Secure” and increase your customers’ trust and increase revenue for your business. So consider having an SSL certificate from a trusted SSL service provider. Not only is it necessary in today’s day and age, but an absolute mandate.
Website security plays a vital role in driving traffic and gaining customers' trust. You can hire SEO specialists to improve website ranking. They will provide white label SEO service, SEO report, guest posting, local SEO, SEO analytics, etc.
Reference
• A beginner's guide to SSL: What it is & why it makes your website more secure
• A comprehensive guide to SSL certificates