The internet is full of opportunities for ecommerce businesses to thrive, but it’s also full of risk. From malicious hackers to compromised accounts and fraudulent transactions, there are many threats to your online store that you need to protect against.
One of the best ways you can do that is by installing an SSL certificate on your website. An SSL Certificate protects customers’ sensitive information (like credit card numbers) as it travels over the internet while they’re shopping at your site, which makes them feel more secure about doing business with you.
Using this powerful and essential addition to your ecommerce website ensures you get a much-needed SEO boost in your page rank as well as provides peace of mind shopping to your customer base.
What is SSL?
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a security protocol used to encrypt data between your site and the user’s browser. This means that if someone wanted to intercept your traffic in transit, they would not be able to read it without knowing your private key or certificate.
Theoretically speaking, this makes it more difficult for attackers to gain access to sensitive information about users, such as credit card numbers or passwords.
Whether you are running a small online store or a large ecommerce business, implementing SSL on your site can provide numerous benefits, including lower ecommerce fraud rates. The harder it is to trick your website into malicious attacks, the lower the rate of fraud you will experience. This could mean thousands in saved expenses and a sure way to increase customer experience.
Benefits of an SSL Certificate for Your eCommerce Website
If you’re an ecommerce business, it’s important to understand the benefits of an SSL certificate for your website. To get started, let’s take a look at some of the most significant ways that an SSL certificate can help protect your site:
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- Protects customer data– a quality SSL certificate will ensure all the sensitive data of your potential and future customers remain hidden from public view.
- Works with Google – every few months, Google updates its search algorithm, and not having a quality SSL certificate active on your ecommerce site will lower your rank.
- Key to SEO – having an SSL certificate is now essential to be considered a “real” website and not a bot.
- Increased customer trust – tech-savvy clients will only make purchases on websites with the https header. That isn’t possible without an SSL certificate.
- Blocks most attacks – you won’t have to worry about MITM (man in the middle) or phishing attacks unless they are high-level.
SSL and Ecommerce Fraud
SSL certificates are used in ecommerce transactions to validate the identity of a website and encrypt information. This helps prevent fraud and make sure that your customers’ data is safe when they’re making purchases online.
One of the primary ways that SSL helps to lower ecommerce fraud is by encrypting sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, during online transactions. This makes it much more difficult for hackers to intercept and steal this information, reducing the risk of credit card fraud. Additionally, SSL helps to prevent phishing attacks, where criminals create fake websites to trick users into entering their sensitive information.
The Importance of Website Security for SEO Rankings
While SSL is a must-have for any ecommerce website, it’s particularly important that you have HTTPS if you’re handling sensitive data. For example, if your website has credit card information or other personal information on it (like social security numbers), then an SSL certificate will help keep that information safe from hackers.
Having an SSL certificate will also boost SEO rankings because Google has stated that they prefer sites with secure connections over those without one. Search engines, such as Google, use a variety of ranking factors to determine the relevance and credibility of a website. One of these ranking factors is the security of a website, and SSL plays a crucial role in ensuring that a website is secure.
Choosing the Best SSL Certificate for Your Ecommerce Store
When you’re choosing an SSL certificate for your ecommerce store, it’s essential to understand the different types of certificates and how they can benefit your business.
There are several different types of SSL certificates available, and it’s essential to choose the right one for your ecommerce site. Factors to consider when choosing an SSL certificate include the level of security and trust that it provides, as well as the cost. Some SSL certificates, such as Extended Validation (EV) certificates, provide a higher level of security and trust, while others, such as Domain Validation (DV) certificates, are more affordable.
If all of this seems confusing, your website hot can usually provide a decent SSL certificate solution. Or, you can use the popular Let’s Encrypt system for a free version that will do the trick for the short term.
Adding More Ecommerce Security with Our Plugin
After you have gone through the process of upping your website security and efficiency with a quality SSL certificate, you need to add quality layers of protection. That is where we can help!
OPMC is now offering a Security for WooCommerce plugin that ensures you get all the ecommerce protection you need. From blocking IPs that could be fraudulent to restricting the number of orders from suspected harmful regions of the world, this custom plugin gives you the added layer you need to reduce chargebacks and focus on more critical ecommerce needs. Visit our storefront today to learn more about how this plugin can boost your ecommerce efforts.
Conclusion
Security is an important aspect of any ecommerce website, but it’s even more vital if you want your site to rank well in search engines. We hope the information in this post has helped you understand how SSL certificates can protect your online store against fraud and boost its SEO rankings.
If you have any questions or need assistance with choosing the suitable certificate for your business, feel free to reach out and leave a comment below.
Download WooCommerce Anti-Fraud today
WooCommerce Anti-Fraud assigns a score to orders as they are placed. The higher the score, the higher the risk of fraud.
