Have you noticed that some sites have a green lock icon and say “Secure” up in front of the web address, and others don’t? That is indicating whether the site is running on secure protocol or not. In the past, mostly just online stores or government sites for instance would use that. But as the need for security on websites has grown, having the secure protocol is going to be very important to you very soon.
Chrome, the most widely used web browser, already puts a little info icon in front of site addresses that aren’t secure to let you know. But beginning in October 2018, this will change to a bright red warning stating that your site is “NOT SECURE”. Warnings like that don’t do good things for your website traffic. Expect a good percentage of site visitors that see that warning will exit your site right then, worried about visiting a non secure site. As well, search engines do value sites running on https secure protocol, a bit higher than those that are insecure, so you’re taking a hit on your SEO if you’re not secure yet.
To get secure, your site will need an SSL security certificate (not expensive, and billed annually) installed in your hosting and have all links corrected so they will go to https (secure) instead of http (not secure). If you’re hosted with us, just get in contact with us and we can arrange to upgrade your site to the secure settings. And if you’re not hosted with us, we can still take care of things, just give us a shout.
