There are many factors you should consider as to why you should use HTTPS on your website – meaning it is fully secure. HTTPS stands for Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol Secure, which simply means it’s a protocol that is widely used on the internet to keep communication secure over a computer network. What that means in detail is: every time a user accesses your website the data is encrypted between the server, where your domain is hosted, and the user. Nobody can see what is being looked at or the information that has been transmitted between the website and the user which makes it a very secure method. There are several reasons why you will want to implement this on your website:

1. Website Forms – If you have any forms on your website where someone fills in their email, name, personal or financial information, you will want to ensure this is encrypted. Otherwise, someone can sit in the middle and what I mean by that is if you go to a café where the internet is wide open anyone can actually sniff through the network and see the data passing through. If your website is not encrypted with an SSL key (encrypts information) they will see the data right away and be able to capture all your information.
2. E-commerce – If you have e-commerce on your website than an SSL key is mandatory to process payment in order to keep credit card information secured.
3. Google Website Optimization – Another reason to secure your website is Google is now starting to give more importance to websites that are fully encrypted with HTTPS and SSL. Meaning you will potentially get a higher ranking than a competitor who is not yet on HTTPS.
4. It’s easy to set-up – You can buy an https or SSL certificate these days for around $9 per year.  Or you can actually now get a certificate for free with “Let’s Encrypt”. They are a new organization that offers free SSL certificates signed by them and they are valid. You wouldn’t use them for e-commerce as they don’t provide any insurance, but it’s very easy to employ on your day to day website for forms and will help ensure you get higher ranking on Google.

Let us know if you have any questions regarding this. We can help you make your website secured with an SSL certificate.