Why is it so important that you switch your website over to HTTPS?
What even is the difference between HTTP and HTTPS?
The following guide will give you a much better understanding of HTTP vs HTTPS in general.
1) HTTP vs HTTPS websites: understanding the basics
Without HTTPS, any data passed is insecure. This is especially important for sites where sensitive data is passed across the connection, such as e-commerce sites that accept online card payments, or login areas that require users to enter their credentials and web forms.
Users can identify whether a site uses HTTPS protocol by the web address. The very first part of the web address (before the “www”) indicates whether the site uses HTTP or HTTPS protocols.
2) SEO advantage of switching to HTTPS
If you’re looking at the main difference between HTTP and HTTPS, HTTPS obviously has a big advantage. After all, wouldn’t you want your site to be as secure as possible?
However, the security advantage isn’t the only benefit of using HTTPS. In fact, switching over to HTTPS can end up boosting your SEO efforts as well. The following are a few ways in which HTTPS can help to improve your SEO.
INCREASE YOUR WEBSITE RANKINGS
Besides the fact that Google itself has announced that sites switched to HTTPS will receive a small bump in rankings, doing so can lead to a rankings boost over time in any event because visitors will be more likely to browse through sites that they know are secure.
PRESERVE REFERRER DATA
The use of an HTTPS site makes Google Analytics more effective. This is because the security data of the website that referred to you are saved with the use of HTTPS – it’s not with HTTP sites. With HTTP sites, referral sources will just appear as “direct traffic”. This gives HTTPS a big advantage for SEO in itself.
For example, if you don’t have https website than you won’t get correct statistics from https://www.visitestonia.com/en/ or https://www.vikingline.ee/ and other https sites.
BUILD TRUST WITH VISITORS
Because an HTTPS site encrypts all communication, visitors will protect not just sensitive information, like passwords and credit card information, but also their browsing history. Knowing that they will retain their privacy while browsing your site and knowing that anything that they download, sign up for or purchase won’t put them at risk due to a lack of security is going to help you to build trust, which is vital to capturing leads and closing sales.