Turning Increased Website Security into Increased Sales

Your website is now the most important component of your marketing strategy. But are you leveraging website security to make your website more credible and trustworthy? HTTPS Everywhere and proper content development can make a surprising difference.  And near-term changes by web browser companies will make it even more important as insecure site are branded as “Not Secure” on every page of your Website.

Can Increased Website Security Help you Sell More?

How does your website look when your customer types “www…[yoursite].com.” https://www.[yoursite].com or just “[yoursite.com].com”? There are four (4) levels of visible website security that your customers can see every time they visit your site. Google, Firefox and Microsoft’s browsers all visually tell your customers whether they should trust your site.  Think that impacts sales leads?  Take a look below and you tell me which site looks more secure. What does your site look like?

Poor (Labeled as “Not Secure”)

Better (Labeled as “Not Fully Secure” or “Mixed Content”)

Good (Green Lock and Labeled as Secure if you Click the Info Circle)

Best (Green Company Name with Complete Certificate Information if you click the info Circle)

The examples above are using the Firefox browser on various sites. The differences in display are caused by a combination of using HTTPS versus HTTP and also the type of SSL certification that is used.  GREEN is always good in the minds of your customers, so what should your company do to get there.

Below is the eSecurity Solutions website on Internet Explorer.  On IE a “secure” site is even more prominent by showing a completely green URL bar.

Best in Internet Explorer

Visual Levels of Website Security

With the goal of a higher perceived level of visual security, here are the levels of goodness.

1. Poor–     HTTP site
2. Better– HTTPS site with mixed HTTP/HTTPS content
3. Good–   HTTPS site with Standard SSL Certificate
4. Best–      HTTPS site with Extended Validation Certificate

Why People Care about HTTPS Everywhere

• Google has been driving an HTTPS Everywhere initiative since 2014 to increase Website security. Their belief is that sites should be HTTPS sites and support only external links to HTTPS sites with e<img class=”alignright wp-image-7593 ” style=”border-width: #