If you run your own eCommerce website, it being secure is essential in creating customer confidence; people need to know that their personal details will be safe and secure, so having the ability to keep them that way is an obvious 'must' for any online marketer.

With much of our daily life today being managed online – whether that's working, shopping, banking and even catching up with friends – it is simply vital that we keep our personal data secure. This is where HTTPS comes in.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) are the foundations of sending data via the Web. You will see them at the start of every website address – they are the protocol that sends data between a web browser (i.e.when you enter the data) and a web server (after you submit the data).

HTTPS is the encrypted version of HTTP – this means that the data sent via this protocol will be protected between the web browser and the server, keeping it from being tampered with by cyberattackers. Your data therefore will stay safe and secure – just using HTTP will leave it exposed.

So, let's take a look at how to enable HTTPS on your site, as well as the other benefits of rolling these secure protocols out.

Enabling HTTPS on your eCommerce Website

SSL/TLS certificates

HTTPS can be enabled by acquiring an SSL/TLS certificate. SSL stands for 'Secure Sockets Layer' and is the standard technology for establishing an encrypted link between a server and a browser.TLS stands for 'Transport Layer Security' and is a more secure version of SSL –you can spot it by finding the padlock icon next to the web address on a browser.

You can find out whether an eCommerce website is secure by looking for the padlock, as well as the 'HTTPS' prefix on the browser – you can even click the padlock to find information on the particular certificate that's being used to verify the data encryption.

HTTPS is undoubtedly better at protecting your data than HTTP – in fact, it's not recommended that you visit any site that doesn't contain the protocol as it will be open to attack. This is something that Google actively polices – any site that doesn't have up-to-date security certificates will be deemed as 'not secure' or 'dangerous' and users are told to 'advance at their own risk'. With their increased security, HTTPS sites are therefore valued more highly in Google's search results – potentially boosting your website's presence in their search results.

How HTTPS Can Help Website Ranking In Google

Aside from factoring security in their search results, Chrome (Google's own web browser), requires eCommerce websites to use certificates from trusted providers. Even as far back as 2014, they stated that HTTPS would be a ranking signal in their search results.

As HTTPS increases site rankings in Google, it's important therefore to also view it as an opportunity to boost your SEO (SearchEngine Optimisation) – this will help to push your webpages higher up a keyword search; the higher your site is ranked, the more authoritative and trusted it will be. Along with the security aspect, SEO is an important factor to get right to stand any chance of building a successful online brand.

Securing Your Website with HTTPS

How to set up an SSL/TLS certificate on your eCommerce website can vary depending on whether you're adding it to a new site or to an existing one. Regardless, your first step will be to purchase a relevant SSL/TLS certificate – the easiest way to do so will be by going through your website's domain provider.

Google advise to go through these basic steps to get you started with your HTTPS:

What kind of certificate do you need? You can choose from a single for one website domain, multi-domain for more than one or wildcard certificates which can be used with multiple subdomains of a domain.
Use 2048-bit key certificates –this is the standard size guideline for encryption certificates.
Use relative URLs (the path part of the address – i.e. https://www.advansys.com/website-design) for resources that reside on the same domain.
Use protocol relative URLs (the method for linking to a site that offers both HTTP and HTTPS) for all other domains.
Don't block your HTTPS site from crawling (the method search engines use to understand your site) by using a robots.txt file.
You should allow indexing of your pages by search engines where possible – avoid the 'no index' robots metatag which block this.

To summarise; with people spending more time online than ever before, ensuring that their personal information is protected should be at the vanguard of any eCommerce website's battle plan. By implementing HTTPS everywhere on your site, you will be creating a strong website that offers reassurance, a quick and easy checkout and the ability to rank even higher within a search engine's results.

Would you like to learn more about HTTPS and website security in general? Then when not consider getting in touch with our expert website-building team today?

Need Help Creating a Secure eCommerce Website?

Here atAdvansys, we are specialists in helping all kinds of online businesses to achieve eCommerce solutions that will help to progress their presence online. Our services include the design and build of responsive, high-speed websites, as well as long-term marketing tactics such as SEO as well as PPC.

With vast experience and many successful projects undertaken for businesses large and small, we know that we can help you to build your online brand and achieve the conversions that you require.

For more information on how we can help to improve your eCommerce website's presence in a search engine's rankings, please contact us on 0118 380 0201 or send us an e-mail at sales@advansys.com and we'll get in touch as soon as possible.