The simple answer is YES! All business websites should be converting to SSL.
This was originally posted in September 2017 and recently updated November 2019:
The move to secure websites for businesses that are not processing credit cards has become vital to SEO and your website’s visibility opportunities for a wide variety of keyword searches on Google! Just like Google said, websites without the SSL have felt the repercussions of not following Google’s advice … dropped page rankings.
An interesting comment from the 2019 Global Marketing Day 24-hour sessions … someone one asked which was more important a secure website or a responsive website. Both are important. The experts said if they had to choose it was the secure website!
SEO Tips on SSL
- If you have a WordPress site, the “Really Simple SSL” plugin is very useful and often recommended by hosting companies.
- Don’t forget to tell your SEO provider that you now have the secure certificate.
- Don’t forget to update your Google Analytics
Original post September 2017:
Google has been talking about getting businesses to secure their websites. Most businesses with shopping carts that do credit card processing have taken steps to encrypt credit card transactions for buyers are looking for online shopping. Consumers began looking for the “lock” symbol and wouldn’t purchase on a website unless they saw the lock. Other websites without shopping carts haven’t paid much attention to securing their websites until this year (2017). Google is recommending that all business owners get an SSL certificate.
- All payment technologies that are still Transport Layer Security (TLS), should be replaced with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
- In October of 2017 any kind of online forms where you are gathering a customers information should be secure.
- And SSL will become a part of the SEO factoring.
What is SSL?
SSL is short for Secure Sockets Layer. The key word to remember is “secure”. The certificate obtained from your hosting company will provide encryption securities so that information passed from a keyboard to your website will not be easily hacked. If you can’t remember “SSL” then try to remember just to tell your hosting company that you want the secure website lock on your website!
You probably already notice when a website is secure, you will often see a green lock or “https://” will be part of the url.
SSL = HTTPS://