You can’t win business without earning someone’s trust. This old adage still holds true today and is often overlooked in the digital space. The pace of today’s business forces us to make hasty decisions and sacrifices, sometimes making its way into our websites. There are a number of ways to earn trust through a website from content and design alone. However, customers may have already left your site before even interacting with your content and design!
You’re at the mercy of browsers and search engines. Search engines encourage businesses to have valid security credentials in place, to be compliant with local rules and regulations, and to respect customer data. They do so by a couple of ways on the backend.
First, search engines penalize your site in search results. Your site will just appear lower on the search page for any relevant keywords. 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. After all, first impressions are everything. Understand how you can do so below.
Secured Through the Automated Way
Let’s talk more about the unsecured website example. There are manual and automated ways for installing the 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 easy.
Since the SSL certificates often have an expiration date, you have no recourse but to renew them before the certificates 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
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. 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, your organization likely uses a customer relationship management (CRM) and content management system (CMS). One software may require a certain protocol while the other software requires another. With the wrong configuration, your CRM, CMS, and even website may crash!
You have options for security, but the best choice may not work for your tech stack. Understand the cost benefits of your security solution. Discuss them with your web development team or with an expert like Uplancer to implement a solution that works for you.
Shortening the Security Gap
When figuring out what’s best for your website, you could experiment and spend hours upon hours correcting your mistake. Taking this route can be cost-intensive, especially if you run into issues with security protocols. For instance, an incorrect implementation of the protocols can cause layout issues, plugins to not work, or even crash your site.
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 automated, 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.
