You can’t win business without earning someone’s trust. When it comes to trusting a website, you’re at the mercy of browsers and search engines. They encourage websites to have valid security credentials in place, to be compliant with local rules and regulations, and to respect customer data. They’ll encourage websites in a couple of ways:
- First, search engines will penalize your site in search results. Your site will just appear lower on the search page for any relevant keywords to your website.
- Second, browsers make it easy for your customers to make a split-second decision on whether they can trust your company with the dreaded message, “This site is not secure.” It’s a simple, yet powerful message that identifies when businesses fail to secure their website data, which could potentially expose customer data.
Long story short, take extra steps to install a valid and indefinite SSL certificate on your server to earn your customer’s trust. Check out how you to do so below.
Secured Through the Automated Way
Let’s talk more about the unsecured website example. There are manual and automated ways to install an SSL certificate. The manual way is error-prone, tedious, and redundant and shouldn’t even be considered for most modern sites.
On the other hand, automated solutions make manual methods obsolete. Plugins and software can be installed on your website to secure it with the click of a few buttons. The automated way is quicker, more reliable, and allows non-technical people to secure their sites. Additionally, there’s usually a large community that supports the plugin or software, which makes maintaining your website security simple.
Since the SSL certificates often have an expiration date, you have no recourse but to renew them before they expire. The moment you forget to renew your SSL certificate is when you start losing customers. So make sure to set a reminder, or use a service that auto renews the certificates, such as AWS Certificate Manager (ACM).
You’ve Got Options for Security
Depending on your tech stack, you may use Let’s Encrypt to secure your domain and subdomains. You may also have ways through your hosting provider to quickly attach an SSL certificate to your website. Either way, this process is quite simple.
Keep in mind, when working with an automated solution for securing your site, the easy part is knowing how it works. The hard part is how it impacts your current digital infrastructure. For instance, sites using a customer relationship management (CRM) and content management system (CMS) may require a certain protocol over another. With the wrong configuration, your CRM, CMS, and even website may crash!
Remember, you have options for security and the most popular choice may not be the best one for your chosen tech stack. Discuss your options with your web development team or with an expert like Uplancer before implementing a security solution.
Shortening the Security Gap
When figuring out what’s best for your website, you could spend hours upon hours through trial and error, correcting your mistakes. You’ll probably get to an answer, but at what cost? A downed website, customers complaining, or lost business? Or you could consult with website security experts like Uplancer to help secure your site. No matter what your chosen tech stack is, we’ve got the capabilities to secure it.
The Bottom Line
With every website, security is everything. It can make or break your customer’s first impression of your brand. Whether you secure your site manually or in an automated way, you must implement a solution that works with your technologies and that lasts. Remember, it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. Connect with an Uplancer team member today to help secure your site, the right way.
