But I Don’t Take Credit Cards on the Website

These days many websites are only displaying information and don’t actually sell products and items online. So why would you need to set up a Trustwave SSL certificate? There is a small bit of effort to get one set up, and it can cost you a small outlay of money for the cert plus your web person’s time. You probably have a few reasons to go ahead and get it set up anyway.

Security

As mentioned previously, it’s possible that someone could intercept and sniff your user id and password and gain access to your content management system. If you haven’t changed the login details, it’s actually pretty easy to find your login id on WordPress. So if I have that information, now all I’d need is your password (if I were a nasty hacker looking to break in).

SEO

Secondly, and probably most importantly Google is now telling us that setting up SSL on your website is important, and it’s actually a ranking factor. They’ve started backing away from all the “usual” SEO factors like links, and so on. But they are telling us we need three things:

• A mobile-responsive site
• A fast website (small graphics)
• A secure website

They want peoples’ experiences to be totally secure.

Trust

Finally, it's important that people are now definitely looking for the green padlock in the web browser. It’s a nice and reliable sign of trust.

In order to better understand what SSL is, let’s first take a look at HyperText Transfer Protocol, or HTTP. HTTP is a protocol that web servers and/or browsers use to send data to each other. When you type a URL into the address bar, you are actually sending an HTTP command to the web server which will in return retrieve the website that you’re trying to see.

SSL is a cryptographic protocol that ensures secure communication over a computer network. To put it simply, SSL basically encrypts the data being sent between the computer and the web server to make it impossible for a third party to read and process. Instead of just HTTP sending data, SSL combines with HTTP to form HTTPS, which is a secure way of sending data from one computer to another. You can check if a site is protected with SSL by seeing if it says ‘https’ before the URL in the address bar.

In addition to encrypting data, SSL certificates also verify that you’re sending data to the correct server. Accessing a site that has an SSL certificate helps the client know that they will be dealing directly with the site and that no other computer will be involved.

When do you need a higher level of assurance?

SSL certificates, which are only domain control validated, cannot assure visitors that a web site is operated by a legitimate, verified business. The basic security indicators of SSL have been known to be faked by fraudsters. If you are concerned about fraud and loss of customer confidence, you need an SSL certificate with verifiable trust marks such as a dynamic "site seal" that shows the web site owner’s information or an Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificate recognized by high security browsers. Ask RNS IT & Data Solutions to help you...

RNS IT & Data Solutions uses Comodo SSL for the best level of security and encryption

• Issued online in minutes with no paperwork or delays
• Highest strength 2048 bit signatures / 256 bit encryption
• Recognized by all major browsers and devices