In a nutshell HTTPS is a secure way for you to browse the Internet. You’ll
have recognised that most URL’s start with HTTP:// in front of the usual www,
but with the extra ‘S’ in there it makes your website secure.
In the past using HTTP means that it is relatively easy for criminals,
crooks, and Ahem Government Agencies to effectively spy on what you’re
doing. Increasing marketing agencies and data collection companies are
doing this as well – It’s part of the big brother culture we live in.
Privacy Advocates have long campaigned to stop our privacy being eroded and
while most of us don’t really care that much, occasional we do care when we’re
endless called by the same marketing people or we’ve been a victim of internet
fraud. Like most crime – it does actually hurt when you’re effected.
Technically when you click a link or button on a website – it sends a
message across the internet to come other computer out there which responds and
shows you the next page you want. All the while that your ‘command’ is
travelling across the internet it can be accessed and monitors. Simple
tracking software makes it easy to see what forms you’re filling in or what web
pages you’re looking at.
HTTPS makes this more secure – it shambles your commands as they traverse
the website and at the other end the website unscrambles the message and sends
back a scrambled result for your computer to understand. Anyone accessing
that data won’t understand it unless they have the ‘key’ which only your
computer and the website will have.
The Solutions
The onus to sort this out is on the website owner. They are the ones that
need to make sure their websites are secure and protected so that their users
can use their websites safely. Thus my explanation here.
In the past all this was very expensive and a bit complicated to install,
but these days it is all much cheaper and there are plenty of services that can
do it for either a low monthly cost or a one off annual cost.
To get HTTPS you need to either subscribe to an only system such as
www.cloudflare.com – costing about $20 per month where they do everything for
you, it is seriously easy – just sign up and make a small change to your
domain.
Or you can get your own SSL Certificate – install it on your Hosting Package
and it will start working. The cost is in the region of $100 per year.
SEO Implications
It’s worth nothing that as per the Video above Google have become strong
supporters of HTTPS and if you look when using Google you’ll see that all their
websites are now secure. Google are fully recommending that all websites
are made this way by default and are prepared to give websites that are secure
a boost on their rankings.
Our Recommendation
For the SEO improvement alone I would recommend using HTTPS for your website,
we are also strong believers in making sure that people feel comfortable using
your website. This leads to a better user experience and people will be
more likely to buy into your service or product, leading to more sales and
enquiries.
In the fuller circle of website marketing for the cost of a few hundred quid
being secure on your website is no longer the expensive option it once
was. In fact the opposite these days it can easily lead to more success,
new customers and better rankings on Google.
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