Why Does My Website Need to Use HTTPS?

September 18, 2018

If you haven’t already made the switch, you’re probably wondering why do you even need HTTPS?

You’re a small business. You don’t have a budget to spend on full-time IT. You barely have time to update your website, let alone move it from HTTP to HTTPS. And that’s why you need to do it.

Small businesses are a huge target for hackers.

There are tons of small businesses out there. And they have a hard time keeping their software up to date and secure.

3 Reasons You Should Switch to HTTPS Today

You’ll get a boost in SEO In 2014, Google added HTTPS as a ranking factor. It was small (about 1%), but it could be enough to bump you up from page 2.
Browsers show your site as secure When your site is secure, customers can trust you. Where there’s trust, there’s a relationship. Where there’s a relationship, there are continual sales.
Your customer’s data will be more secure When your customer clicks on something, enters information, or logs in and out - those actions will be encrypted (masked or obscured). This prevents “man in the middle” attacks. You must use HTTPS if you gather ANY data from customers on your site (email, usernames, passwords, addresses, phone numbers, location, etc.)

If you don’t think you gather data from your customers, use it anyway! Chances are you do and just don’t know it (maybe through analytics or other 3rd party software like ads). Or you will collect data on your customers at some point. Do it now and your customers can trust you to secure their valuable information.

Talk with your hosting provider today. Tell them you want to switch to HTTPS and ask them for help doing it. They want you to switch too. A more secure website means their servers are safer.

It may be a challenge for you, but you can do it. And you owe it to your customers to keep their information secure.

Show your customers you care about them and they’ll want to keep doing business with you.