What is an SSL Certificate and Why it is Important for Websites?

The SSL certificate guarantees that can carry out operations through electronic commerce in a secure manner. And it is not only a competitive advantage but also increasingly an obligation that we must follow for the sake of good practices in electronic commerce.

One of the pillars on which a website or ecommerce is based is trust. For economic transactions through the Internet continuously, it is necessary to offer visitors the greatest security guarantees so that these operations are carried out safely. 

Many companies focus their resources and efforts on the aspects most related to SEO, marketing or conversion optimisation. But they do not always pay enough attention to the legal aspects of the online store and everything that has to do with security.

What is an SSL certificate?

The SSL certificate allows offering security to the visitors of any web page installed.

It is a way of verifying that it is an authentic and reliable website that can enter personal data can enter personal data since it strictly complies with legal regulations. 

The acronym SSL responds to the English Secure Socket Layer words, which is a security protocol that allows data to travel safely and in full. We speak, therefore, of a secure data transmission between server and client, which is also carried out in an encrypted manner.

What Google Says about SSL Certificate

Google prioritises its search engine to pages that have the SSL certificate, and a certificate provides greater security for websites and sensitive data. 

Google has officially communicated on several occasions its predilection for creating a safer Internet. It will reward those sites concerned about keeping their portal secure and includes https as a ranking signal with a better positioning (SEO). We will tell you more advantages below.

Does SSL help in SEO Rankings?

Google has been promoting the use of the https web for some time (2014), or what is the same, SSL certificates. And for this, he made an official statement, “HTTPS as a ranking signal”, where he reported that https would begin to influence his positioning algorithm.

Since then, this security certificate has been gradually increasing its importance, to the point of improving the ranking in Google, so that it is now another important factor for SEO.

For that reason, there are many SEOs (web positioners) who have set to work to improve the web positioning of their clients. Since it is a factor that is becoming more and more relevant in the positioning algorithm, it is estimated that by the summer of 2017, it will have reached the maturity stage of this project.

Advantages of SSL certificate

For those who still doubt the importance of installing an SSL certificate in their online store, let’s see that it is not just a technical issue. It implies notable advantages and benefits for electronic businesses and web pages in general that decide to bet on security.

Privacy and Data Security: Data privacy is essential for any sensitive web page and works with them. If, for example, we have an online store so that users can buy from us, we will need some personal data such as address, bank account number, username and password…

It encrypts the data between the visiting user and the server. To explain it in some way, if someone tries to “listen” the communication between the two parties, they will not be able to decrypt what data is being exchanged because the decryption keys are unique and private, which only the user and the user have.

Build Trust in Users: It is a security indicator visible to all; it provides users with great confidence. It is the easiest way to alleviate existing fears regarding confidential information. Many people fear that a third party might intercept them and steal from their bank account. With an SSL certificate, this data is safe. 

When verifying that you use SSL certificates, your clients see that your company is trustworthy to deposit their data since these will be encrypted.

Improve your Positioning: By having a trustworthy website free of malware, you are also sending a positive message to users and to Google, which will undoubtedly impact your web positioning.

Protection Against Attacks: Another of the great advantages of the SSL certificate is the protection provided by the https protocol against cyber attacks. Such as denial of service attacks that saturate our website or spammers that try to read the communications between the user and the server.

If you want to install an SSL certificate on your website, the first thing is to be clear that our server must have SSL support. Not all servers are suitable for installing SSL certificates.

Some servers offer you the possibility to install SSL for free or for a fee. If you use a dedicated server or a VPS with Apache HTTP Server (the most popular and common server), you must follow a certain procedure to obtain your certificate.

After requesting your SSL certificate from your provider and downloading it, you will need to create a private signing key and a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) using the terminal before you can generate the certificate.