The one simple thing that your website needs to show in search results
As the year nears its end, and you get ready for a few days( or more) of well deserved rest, you will probably take some time to review what worked in 2018, and envision how your new year will look like.
For small business owners, their website is the most valuable marketing tool, their digital presence and maybe even their store. But what happens when the website hasn’t been updated, and is not secure?
Starting this past summer, Google and Chrome started ranking secure sites higher than unsecured ones. How do you know if your site is secure? If you click your URL in the browser, it should automatically redirect to start with HTTPS:// . If your site starts with HTTP://, it means it doesn’t have an SSL certificate and certain browsers (I mostly use Chrome, and it certainly does that) will display a message that says: This site is not secure!
If you search for relevant keywords on Google, and your site doesn’t have an active SSL certificate, you are sure to be displayed much lower than other sites that have the security layer. The reason is, Google wants to prevent unsecured sites from appearing at the top of search results. That means that even if you implement other SEO strategies, they will be ineffective without this simple aspect.
What if you had an SSL certificate, but it expired? Well, that is a slightly more complicated situation that can be remedied, but it takes more time. If that happens to your site, you-ll have the unpleasant surprise that your website doesn’t display AT ALL.
Are there more types of SSL certificates? How complicated is it to implement them? If technical details are not your cup of tea and you want to get back to what you do best, AKA your business, contact us and we-ll take care of it for you. We now offer a promotion of a fixed $100 package for a new SSL certificate (for self- hosted WordPress sites), and we will include a few extras: We can set up a business email for you and offer you a complimentary web diagnostics.
Is an SSL certificate sufficient to make your site secure? Now that you mentioned it, you should also have a malware blocker, have WordPress & all plugins updated to its latest version, and several other things that are included in a regular website maintenance. But the SSL certificate is a very essential step, and we recommend you have that taken care of before thinking of anything else your site may need.
As the countdown to Christmas and end of year celebrations begins, get a cup of hot cocoa and gift your website (and your business) a more secure 2019!
warmly,
Anca
