SSL Certificates: 5 Tips for Your Business Website or Online Shop

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The digital world has allowed our businesses to run completely online, with many amazing benefits like decentralization, offering the ability to shop online, digital services, great marketing, infinite scalability and the overall flexibility of a business. However, these amazing benefits do come at a cost, which is the risk of compromising safety with the rise of ever more vicious hackers and their cyber-attacks. In order to protect your business and your loyal clients it is important to encrypt your servers with SSL certificates, which offer a secure connection between your client and the server. Here, are five tips for running a business website or an online shop. 

Consider the benefits 

There are numerous benefits when it comes to encrypting your web business with an SSL certificate. Installing this amazing safety protocol prevents any cyber attacks that might befall you or your clients, which is great for minimizing any lawsuits. In addition, it also hides all communication that may take place over your domain, as well as the personal information that is stored on your servers. 

Choose the right SSL certificate

Choosing the right SSL certificate should be the first step to making your business more secure online. This largely depends on the volume of clients that you will be getting, so if you are just starting out it is a good idea to get an entry level Domain Validation Certificate, which is a great way to ensure security and bring credibility to your company. To be more precise, this certificate brings in features like storing the clients’ passwords. This option is a bit cheaper and it is extremely easy to implement. However, if you are going to have a larger volume of clients, then it is well worth considering the more advanced options, one of those is the Organization Validation (OV) Certificate which is great at keeping sensitive information such as credit card or bank account details. The highest form of protection definitely comes in the EV SSL packages, which is definitely a gold standard in the industry, however it does come at a much higher price. It is mostly used for large enterprises and big tech companies. There is no doubt that choosing a trusted SSL certificate is key to forging a long-lasting online business.  

Improve your SEO rankings

One of the great benefits of getting an SSL certificate when starting a new business, apart from staying secure, is boosting the traffic on your website. Google is the undisputed winner among all the other search engines. One of Google’s top priorities is the general safety of everyone’s data on the internet. One of the company’s future goals is complete encryption ensuring that the internet is safe for everyone. Good search engine optimization practices (SEO) now include factors such as having a declared HTTPS on your page which can only be done by getting an SSL certificate. This means that businesses can boost their reach by implementing this certification. Not only can you now rest assured knowing that your page is safe for you and the clients but it is also attracting more and more people because it is being ranked better. All of this builds long-term trust for your brand and cuts any unnecessary costs like with expensive ads. 

Build trust

One of the worst things that can happen to your online business or web shop is that people just do not seem to trust it, no matter how well reviewed it is or how professional the page seems to look. This is simply because these factors still do not change the fact that an uncertified page is going to show ‘not secure’. There is something about seeing the ‘verified’ notification at the top, that just puts people’s minds at ease. All of that boosts the conversion rates and conveys your brand as well established and trustworthy. 

Avoid legal consequences

Staying private and protecting people’s data is one of the top concerns with any big tech company nowadays. There have been far too many scandals where people’s private data has been leaked due to poor safety regulations and insecure webpages. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a data privacy law that has been implemented in the European Union (EU). Under this regulation the sharing of information like name, phone number, photo, IP address and even e-mail is strictly prohibited. One of the best ways to adhere to this regulation is to install a good SSL certificate. Especially when running an e-commerce page with a complex built-in web shop it is useful to create a subdomain for the shop itself and encrypt it separately, which serves as an extra layer of protection and minimizes legal consequences. 

There is no doubt that staying up to date with the safety protocols in the digital world is a must if you want to create a long-lasting brand. One of the best ways to do this is by getting an appropriate SSL certificate, which can help you improve your marketing, build trust and minimize any legal risks.