You might have heard of SSL but weren’t sure whether you needed it on your PT website. If you’re not taking payments online, why would you need it, right?
Well, that used to be the case but not any more. For a long time now, Google have been pushing for a ‘secure web’. This means that ANY data transmitted between your visitors and your website should be encrypted in order to keep your visitor’s data safe.
Even if you’re not transmitting payment data, it’s quite likely that you will be transmitting some kind of “sensitive personal data” (anything that must be protected from unauthorized access to safeguard the privacy or security of an individual such as information about their physical health) and therefore you should be transmitting that data securely, to prevent any unscrupulous 3rd party accessing that data on its journey from the visitor’s web browser to your server,
Unfortunately, a lot of websites don’t use an SSL and they transmit data insecurely which is why, starting In July, Google Chrome is making it official: If a website doesn’t have a security certificate, visitors will see a warning.
How Can You Tell if Your Website Will Be Affected?
Easy! Visit your website and look at the address bar (see below) – if you see a green padlock and the word “Secure” in green you already have an SSL and you don’t need to do anything else. If you don’t see the padlock and the word “Secure” you need to read the rest of this article and take action!
Why Is This an Issue and How Will It Affect You?
Google’s goal is to force website owners to secure their sites, by making it very obvious to visitors when they are visiting an insecure site. It doesn’t matter what page of a website a visitor lands on, if the website doesn’t have an SSL the warning message will be displayed. So even if your visitors have no intention yet of sending you any data (e.g. filling in a form to request a free report) their visit to your website will be “sabotaged” by Google if you do not have a secure certificate, plain and simple! Because think about this… most people don’t know what that warning message actually means, so it’s just going to be like a BIG FLASHING WARNING LIGHT scaring your visitors away!
“Even if your visitors have no intention yet of sending you any data, their visit to your website will be “sabotaged” by Google”
Thankfully, the solution is simple. Get an SSL installed on your website! The cost for this varies from free to a couple of hundred dollars a year depending on who you get the SSL certificate from – some web hosting companies give them away for free, others charge. And there are different types of certificate available but don’t get bogged down in the details, just get the cheapest certificate you can, get it installed and forget about it!
This change that is coming in July is ONLY for Google Chrome but you can bet that other browsers will follow suit pretty quickly. And around 60% of people use Chrome so this really is something you ought to address right away unless you want less people making inquiries through your website!
What You Need to Do Next…
Contact your web hosting company, or if you don’t know who that is, contact whoever built your website. Ask what SSL certificate options are available and pick the cheapest one. You may be lucky and be able to get a free certificate. You only need the cheapest option – don’t get upsold on this, there are no benefits to buying a more expensive SSL unless you are taking payments directly via your website, in which case you really ought to have an SSL certificate already!
Flemming Arnott
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