A step-by-step guide toward website protection
Everything you need to know about securing your website
Security is of the uttermost importance and priority when we talk about business. Whether it’s an offline business or an online business.
Irrespective of the platforms,
A secure business is one of the notorious traits that are crucial from the customer’s point of view as well.
Talking about the online or digital platforms, the security of your business (website) is determined by the presence of a valid and tenacious SSL certificate.
So, without any further adieu,
Let’s go through the various aspects falling under the “SSL certificate” step-by-step.
Following are the few of the many topics that we will be covering in this article:
- What is an SSL certificate?
- How does SSL certificate authentication work?
- What are the types of SSL?
- Importance of SSL certificate from a search engine’s ranking perspective
What is an SSL certificate?
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate is a type of digital security certificate for your website.
In simple language,
SSL certificate is a trademark of security that you have on your website.
This makes the new audiences trust your website as well as the present already converted clients.
It makes a whole lot of difference to your website having an SSL certificate in terms of scaling competitive advantage in your niche/domain as compared to those who don’t.
Well, it’s not just a certificate or a trademark for your website.
It makes your website a secure platform for the audiences keeping every data on it safe and sound.
How does SSL certificate authentication work?
The working of SSL i.e Secure Sockets Layer is not very tricky to understand.
In fact, it’s quite straightforward and transparent.
When a browser tries to connect to a website, it requests the website or web server to identify itself.
This is when the SSL certificate comes into the scenario.
The website sends a replica of the SSL certificate to the browser as requested.
In return to this SSL certificate, the web browser shares a signed acknowledgment starting an encrypted and secure session.
Thus you see a secure connection indication by the web browser for the website which means it is encrypted and safe to use.
There are many more qualities that come with an SSL certificate that is very crucial or we can say necessary for your website.
Benefits of SSL certificate
- Encrypted and secure connections
- Enriches audience trust in you
- Protection of your and customer’s data
- Tenacious security for cloud and mobile apps as well
- Higher ranking in the SERPs
What are the types of SSL certificates?
It’s important to choose your SSL digital certificate from a trusted source otherwise, it will show you the following error.
The security level of the SSL certificate differs among the types of certificates
Also, the access to certain services remains restricted.
Suppose you have a plain website without any transaction options than the SSL certificate would not need much validation.
But if your website includes transactions then the need for the same SSL certificate cannot be used for the process as of the plain website.
There are 3 main types of SSL certificates that you will come across in the market
They are as follows:
- Domain validated SSL certificates
Domain SSL certificates can be considered as the “only identification” digital certificate of the website.
In simple words,
This web certificate shows the authority of your website by confirming that the website is a registered domain and the owner is himself/herself running the website.
The validation of the domain SSL certificates is done through email, DNS, or HTTP.
As this digital certificate requires less effort towards acquirement,
there are disadvantages outweighing the advantages.
Advantages of domain SSL certificates
- Cost-effective
- Easy acquirement process
Disadvantages of domain SSL certificates
- Least secure compared to other SSL’s
- Easily hackable without leaving any trace
- Audiences might have trust issues
- Customers would not trust your website for any transactions
- Organizational validated SSL certificates
Organizational SSL provides your website an add-on to the above-mentioned website’s SSL certificate such as
Where’s the organization is located in particular as per the
- Country
- State
- City
Basically, it identifies the domain of your website along with the location of the organization in particular.
Validation of such a digital certificate takes anywhere from hours to even days.
This is slightly greater as compared to the domain digital SSL certificate.
Most of the businesses prefer the organizational validated SSL certificates.
- Extended validation SSL certificates
Extended validated SSL certificates go through the most potent and tenacious validation process.
This validation is potent for the one reason that it checks if the business is legitimate or a legal entity.
For this, it requires organization knowledge and also domain information.
This can be considered as the most strong form of SSL certificate.
The validation time for such a website requires anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
Along with this certificate, you get a green padlock on your website.
Thus the trust of your audiences increases and also ensures that the transactions on your website are completely secure.
Importance of SSL certificate from a search engine’s ranking perspective
Websites that are equipped with SSL certificates receive an SEO boost from the search engines which helps them rank better in the SERPs.
The algorithms of the search engines are purely based on providing the audience with the best user experience in addition to relevancy, quality content, etc.
SSL certificates are the new standardized feature that every website ought to be equipped with.
Search engines are constantly in a spree of advancing and enhancing their algorithms with respect to the objective of elevating user experience.
The importance of SSL can be conveyed effectively through the role that it plays in protecting the website from hackers that otherwise would be compromised.
Search engines are well aware of this notorious trait of SSL certificates that keeps the websites safe as well as the transactions taking place on it.
Thus if your website is not validated through the SSL certificate then it might not even appear in the SERPs let alone rank on the first page of the searches.
Buying an SSL certificate
Buying an SSL certificate could be quite tricky especially if you have no clue about your needs.
Thus following are the steps that can help you in buying SSL for your website:
- Identifying you want the SSL for domain or subdomain.
- Whether protection is needed for single or multiple properties.
- Level of protection as per the needs.
Opting for a free SSL certificate will be a big no.
The biggest disadvantage of using an self-signed SSL or a free SSL certificate is that it is not supported by most of the web browsers.
It will most probably show you the “connection is untrusted” error.
So, it’s better that you get your SSL checked.
Following are the basic errors that many seem to ignore them which ultimately leads to SSL error:
- Mixed content (HTTP and HTTPS)
Whynotpadlock will help you identify the issue in the content.
- Mismatch error
- Certificate expired
So this was a complete simple and effective SSL guide that will secure your website from different threats and also stimulate ranking in the SERPs.
We hope this article proves beneficial to you and helps you in your endeavour.
Have any questions or suggestions?
Feel free to contact us at support@butterflythemes.com or call us on 9930447774.
We would love to hear from you.