Sometime towards the middle of last year, Google made an announcement stating that it will be using SSL or HTTPS as a ‘lightweight’ ranking signal within their searching algorithm. The company also stated that this would affect less than a 1% of global searches but they may also decide to improve the HTTPS ranking signal with time. This would occur after webmasters the chance to change their websites to HTTPS. Moving to HTTPS need not be number one on the priority list of webmasters since it is not likely to dramatically improve your page rankings but it is something which needs consideration at your end.
– From Official Google Blog :
For these reasons, over the past few months we’ve been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted connections as a signal in our search ranking algorithms. We’ve seen positive results, so we’re starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal. For now it’s only a very lightweight signal—affecting fewer than 1% of global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high-quality content—while we give webmasters time to switch to HTTPS. But over time, we may decide to strengthen it, because we’d like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web. Official Google Blog
Those of you who publish non-ecommerce websites online will experience some benefits from using SSL/HTTPS. You won’t need to spend a lot of money for installing an SSL certificate on your website either and the slightest difference that it makes can prove to be useful for your site. Websites which are informational and based on written content will reap benefits out of shifting to an SSL certificate since it will give you an SEO boost in Google. Again, if you are using more than one subdomain for your content or have an exchange server, you can rather invest in a premium SSL certificate. This can be more expensive though however, it will be under $100 anyway.
On the other hand, if you run an ecommerce website or something which requires users to enter their sensitive information, using the right kind of SSL will shoot up your conversion rates and thus increase your revenues. You’re your thinking that the SSL prices are high, keep these advantages in mind. Having an EV cert will increase trust levels among visitors improving your conversions. The advantages of HTTPS have been known for long. Studies show that larger corporations may be in need of a multi-domain UCC SSL certificate and smaller ones can do with a Multi-subdomain Wildcard SSL certificate. How will you know which one is right for your need? Contact someone who has a long experience of dealing with SSL certificates.
The first step towards ensuring that you are doing everything to ensure sales conversion are at their ideal positions is to find the right certificate authority especially now. A good certificate authority will be able to guide you in the right direction in choosing the right SSL certificate best for your requirements. For example, if you require a green address bar when customers are trying to arrive at a buying decision, you can well pay for an extra extended verification or EV. The green address bar is constant reminder to users that a website is trustworthy which definitely creates an impact on the mind of the user helping them to arrive at a decision when they are shopping online.
An increase in the number of visitors can help increase your overall sales leading to increased conversions you get out from your traffic – even though your traffic might not increase to a considerable extent, you will experience a change in sales. These days, all you need to do is pay attention to smaller details such as having the right kind of SSL certificate and you can end up with great positive results. The competition online is unthinkable in the present day and SSL can help you get an edge over the others.
