With the digital landscape changing constantly, privacy and data security are an increasing concern for business owners. Website encryption helps and is beneficial for data security, search engine ranking and brand trust.

Over the past few years, most websites have switched from HTTP to HTTPS. A sign that a site is using HTTPS is the lock icon in the browser address bar. But do you know why the switch is important?

What is HTTPS?

HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. It’s a combination of protocols that protects a user’s data, encrypting it to keep it safe from virtual eavesdroppers and undesirable modification during transfer. In contrast, HTTP sends all user data in plain text format, which means that information like credit card numbers and contact details can easily be read by any hacker who manages to break into the connection.

By encrypting communication between your website and its visitors, HTTPS makes it more difficult for Man In The Middle (MITM) attacks to harm you and your customers.

Secure Socket Layers (SSL)

Secure socket layers (SSL) is something you’ll see referenced frequently when it comes to HTTPS. Installed directly onto your web server, these small data files add a cryptographic key to the files on your site, activating the HTTPS protocol and securing connections between website and server. In short, they are the encryption device HTTPS relies on to increase website security.

The benefits of website encryption

Security is a factor in good SEO

Google’s announcement back in 2014—and still considered valid today—that HTTPS sites will get a small SEO boost over those running HTTP means that encrypting your website is valuable even if your site doesn’t manage credit cards or contact information. As digital marketers that are known for achieving higher search engine rankings for our clients, we don’t take lightly any factor that Google considers in its ranking algorithm.

Making websites safer to use

Website encryption reduces the risk of a data breach by hackers, make shopping safer for customers, supports personal data protection compliance regulations and builds brand trust.

Keeping up to date with the changes in technology in a full-time task. Website encryption is one aspect of it that we take care of for you via our ongoing website maintenance programs. It’s all part of protecting your data, improving your search engine ranking and fortifying your brand value.