Google announced that starting October 2017 it will display the ‘NOT SECURE’ warning on HTTP pages where users enter their data as well as HTTP pages viewed in Incognito mode. This doesn’t come as a surprise since, as early as January 2017, it began marking HTTP pages collecting credit cards or passwords as non-secure. These initiatives are part of the search engine giant’s continued efforts to make the Internet a safer place for everyone. Google’s plan is to eventually mark all HTTP pages as non-secure.

If you are a website owner, you should heed Google’s call – move your website to HTTPS ASAP!

Benefits Of Switching Over To HTTPS

Get Better Security: Communication between user and a website on HTTP is not encrypted. This is why data on HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) are vulnerable to breaches. If you are an owner of an eCommerce site, your customer’s credit card information can get compromised. Definitely, this is not going to be good for your business. Similarly, if you have blogs or informational sites using HTTP, your login credentials are at risk of falling into the hands of hackers.

Suffice it to say, the aforementioned data breaches can be costly for you. The thing is, you can avoid them by switching to the more secure version of HTTP which is HTTPS. With HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS), another layer of security protocol is in place, usually SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), and the transfer of data between user and the Web server is encrypted.

Boost SEO Efforts And Ranking: Does migrating from HTTP to HTTPS have an impact on your SEO efforts and consequently, your search engine ranking? Yes! When Google launched its ‘HTTPS Everywhere’ campaign, it began indexing HTTPS pages first before HTTP pages. At the same time, the search engine announced that it has begun using HTTPS as a ranking signal. Hence, if you don’t want your on-going SEO efforts to go to waste and if you want to have a good ranking on the search engine results page (SERP), migrating your website from HTTP to HTTPS is imperative.

Establish Trust With Users: Given the growing number of online data breaches year after year, many online users nowadays are exercising more caution when visiting websites. In fact, according to a study, 28.9% of users look for the green address bar when visiting a website while 38.5% look for the name of the company in the address bar. Moreover, 90% of respondents say that it is highly likely for them to trust a website if it shows security indicators like the green padlock for sites with the SSL certificate. Most importantly, they are more comfortable to share their information or make a purchase if their data is sent via secure connection.

Simply put, the presence of security indicators makes users trust your website. Consequently, this can result in better traffic for your website and/or improved revenues.

Undeniably, moving your website to HTTPS offers benefits which can help you or your business stay competitive and profitable.

How To Migrate Your Website From HTTP To HTTPS

The first step is to purchase an SSL certificate. The HTTPS protocol becomes activated following the installation of the certificate. Once this happens, communication between the server and web browser becomes encrypted and secure. You may purchase the SSL certificate from hosting providers.

After you’ve purchased and installed the SSL certificate, you need to redirect your entire WordPress website to its http:// version. Extreme caution must be exercised during the migration to avoid losses in your Google rankings. Admittedly, this process requires expertise and time. Hence, it’s best to enlist the services of a reputable SEO company to ensure the seamless migration of your website from HTTP to HTTPS.

Need help moving your website to HTTPS? Call us 019609023 or visit our website today!

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Image Attribution: By Fabio Lanari (Internet1.jpg by Rock1997 modified.) [GFDL or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Image Resource: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AInternet2.jpg