HTTPS is the method by which your website is secured by a level of encryption to prevent sensitive data being compromised by hackers.

There are many benefits of HTTPS not just encryption, HTTPS also helps to validate that you are on the correct website and not being “phished”, it also ensures data integrity and that the data passed between server and user without risk of it being tampered with.

Clear Project Scope

HTTPS is now looked at by Google as a trust signal and is given a little boost of SEO juice by Google, so having a HTTPS secured website will help improve your SEO, a little bit at the very least anyway!

Clear Project Scope

HTTPS helps build trust with your website users. HTTPS is highlighted in the browser bar, with a green padlock, the letters HTTPS before a website URL and depending on the level of encryption the whole URL bar can be highlighted green with the companies’ name in included in the green highlighted area.

A further benefit of HTTPS is that as data is transferred over a secure single connection, your website assets can all be called and downloaded together rather than individually. This gives a boost in speed and the time it takes your website to download

If you are looking to make your website secure, HTTPS is the place to start.

Clear Project Scope

Contact your web host and ask them to install you an SSL certificate. There is usually a few for the certificate, up to £300 per year and usually an installation fee of the certificate charged by your webhost of around £40 – this is a one off fee.

Your webhost will talk you through the process and advise you on the type of certificate that best suits your needs, which means you may only need a basic SSL certificate which can cost as little as £49 per year.

If you need help optimising your website once your SSL certificate is in place then please contact ALT on 0121 663 0202 who will be happy to advise on getting the most out of your HTTPS & SSL certificate.

Update for 2019!

Now we are in 2019, it’s easy to look back and see how the expected roll out of https played out.

The first and major benefit of HTTPS, in terms of rankings, was not that it gave an SEO boost as such but those who didn’t have an HTTPS were penalised a little bit.

Major browsers, especially Chrome, are now marking and flagging websites as unsecured when accessed, this is a potential hazard from a UX point of view as it will scare off visitors to your website.

A great thing about the HTTPS roll out is that the cost has come down, from around £79.99 to £59.99 with some web hosts even giving them for free with your web hosting account.

Overall, it’s made the web a far better place – Consumers are more aware of the benefits of HTTPS and actively look out for it and the price of HTTPS has fallen.