We’ve been saying it for years, but HTTPS is the way to go which is why we made the move to have the green padlock you see 4 years ago! Why wouldn’t you want to encrypt any possible information that’s being sent to and from your website?
July 2018 appears to be a huge month for Google as they announced its mobile “Speed Update” which will also coincide with them marking all sites that haven’t migrated to HTTPS as “not secure”.
This latest release will go hand in hand with Chrome 68, and it’s becoming more important for any business serious about their website to treat speed and HTTPS as important factors partially when it comes to organic SEO.
Google has been trying to push webmasters to migrate their sites over to HTTPS for a number of years now and even hinted of a small organic ranking factor boost doing so.
Migrating can be a daunting task for most, we’ve migrated many sites over the years including ours over 4 years ago, some can be straightforward and some can prove a nightmare but we advise all make the move as soon as possible if your site only runs HTTP. All our new build websites have come with SSL as standard for the past 18 months and will continue to do so, we knew the importance at the begging and we pass that over to our customers.
In simple terms, we have to ask our selves… Would we trust a website we visited that said “This Website Is Not Secure”, would you accept and carry on? Or would you close the window and move on? I know I certainly wouldn’t be confident enough to proceed, never mind enter any personal details especially card details if a website was clearly labelled as “Not Secure” would you?
If you’re serious about your website and your customers, we highly recommend the installation of SSL and Migration to HTTPS. We’ve been doing it for years, and if implemented correctly with the correct use of 301 redirects, you won’t see a drop in organic SEO rankings.
If you need help, NW Design happily offers this as a service and have done so for a number of years now, contact us on 0161 327 2131.
