Are you wondering what an SSL Certificate is?
Key Technologies is here to help you understand what it is, what it’s used for and why you need it. And we’re always here to help you install it.
So, what is an SSL Certificate?
An SSL certificate stands for a “Secured Sockets Layer” which in simple words makes your website more secure by encrypting the data to and from the website’s server and your visitor. Why is this important? Well basically any passwords, email addresses, contact form submissions and the like without an SSL certificate are easily intercepted, edited/saved by hackers.
Now you might be thinking my website is too small for hackers to worry about. You would be half right, but hackers of this kind are often not people, more bots programmed by people. They crawl and search all over the internet for websites that are vulnerable and do their thing. You don’t want to be caught up in that!
Why you need an SSL Certificate?
There are many reasons to get an SSL Certificate. Here are four.
User Trust
An SSL certificate will change your website from saying http:// to https:// and apply a nice green badge saying your website is “secure”. This will make users trust/feel safer on your website.
Secure login and form submission
Protect usernames and passwords as well as any data input into your website.
Search Engine rankings
In 2013, google officially announced that they will be ranking websites with SSL certificates higher. Bing and Yahoo did the same soon after.
Online payments
If you accept credit cards or other forms of payments, most credit card companies are now starting to force you to have an SSL certificate.
Google chrome is starting to display unsafe websites like this. This is obviously a big danger for turning away visitors.
Many companies are selling very high-level SSL certificates for a yearly fee. For most people these expensive SSL certificates not needed. Here at Key Technologies, if you’re hosted with us, we offer SSL installations for a small one-time fee that depends on the size of your website. And will not charge you a yearly fee.
So get in contact with us if you’re interested in improving your websites trust, security and SEO ranking.