On October 1, 2017, Google will update their algorithm and Chrome users will see non-secure pages (that don’t use SSL) containing password and credit card input fields as “not secure” in the URL bar. This means simply that if the address to your website is http://example.com, that Google will begin marking these as not secure before loading the website. This can be hugely detrimental to your website’s traffic especially if you have password or credit card payment fields. The warning can be seen in the screenshot below:

SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?

Well, ultimately, you’ll want to purchase an SSL certificate for your site (or have us do it for you) and convert your site to https instead of http. While Google is making this change in Chrome now to sites using password and credit card payment fields, it will eventually show the warning for all pages, whether those fields are present or not. Thinking about SSL and https now will save you some time and headache in the future.

Still not sure?

Think about your buying habits. Think about your browsing habits. If a warning comes up in your browser before you visit a site saying that it’s not secure and that it could be harmful to you to continue browsing the URL in your browser, do you continue? Do you care? Even if you personally don’t, what about your customers?

Not taking the steps to buy an SSL certificate and get it installed now could cause a significant drop in traffic to your site, and thus, conversions. Ultimately, that’s the goal of any site – to get a visitor to contact you, buy something or do something that brings them to you as a customer. See Google’s article on the update here.

SSL certificates are a recurring cost, usually billed annually based on the lifetime of the license. It can be complicated to install the certificate, so don’t try to do it yourself. It’s important to make sure it’s done right to avoid even more errors and lost traffic.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO NOW

Contact us and discuss your options. In most cases an SSL certificate can be setup quickly without issue and downtime. Questions? Ask us!