We all know that adding SSL to your store makes it more secure for your customers to conduct transactions. In fact, many payment processors actually require that you have SSL installed on your hosting.
Often people just apply SSL to their cart and checkout pages, and although that satisfies the immediate issue of securing your checkout, it means youβre missing out on tons of other benefits when you add SSL sitewide.
There are lots of reasons to add a WooCommerce SSL certificate, chief among them is security, but not many people talk about the βotherβ benefits. These are the things that you wouldnβt normally think about when adding SSL.
My hope is that after this article, if youβre on the fence about whether you should add SSL to your site, then these 3 reasons will tip you over the edge.
1. SSL boosts confidence
If youβre only using the PayPal Standard payment gateway that comes stock standard in WooCommerce you donβt technically need an SSL certificate.
Customers add their products, fill in the checkout on your site, then theyβre shifted off to PayPalβs hosted pages to do the actual transaction.
After that, they come back and the deed is done β at no point is the payment information transmitted insecurely because it’s all done on PayPalβs servers anyway.
What you might not know is that even if you donβt technically need an SSL certificate you may want one simply for the fact that it can boost your conversion rate dramatically.
People have been conditioned over the years to βlook for the little lockβ or βlook for the little green barβ to ensure that the transaction theyβre about to make is secure.
Without an SSL certificate, your site will not show this.
So when Jane Doe gets to your checkout, she might think that the page isnβt secure and that risking it isnβt worth it (even though itβs all handled by PayPal so her credit card digits are technically safe).
If you had an SSL certificate installed then this drop off in the checkout would disappear.
In my consulting days helping e-commerce stores optimise their website funnels, Iβve personally seen sites go from a paltry 5-10% conversion rate on the checkout page up to a 30-40% conversion rate on the checkout page simply by adding SSL.
Itβs amazing to watch what that does for a business.
2. You can add a security seal/badge
Thereβs not much else that can increase conversion rates so dramatically on a website than trust.
The funny thing is trust isnβt something you can measure as traditionally as conversion rates or visits to a page. Itβs all about perception.
When a customer comes to your store they get an immediate impression. It happens in a fraction of a second and itβs subconscious. It tells them everything they need to know about your store and whether itβs a trustworthy place to buy from.
Adding trust indicators is a great way to increase the perception of trust, here is a few things we already know we should be doing:
- Ensuring you have a professional looking design
- Showing payment option logos
- Displaying shipping and other information prominently
- Showing privacy policies & terms
- Showing social media profiles
- Displaying customer reviews
Now you can add one more to that list with an SSL certificate, the security seal (sometimes called a security badge).
Baymard Institute recently tested exactly which seal gives the most βtrustβ with consumers.
Official seals are generated by a snippet of code you are given when you purchase an SSL certificate. It will dynamically verify your siteβs SSL on each page load and present the user with an image indicating the validity.
An interesting result of Baymardβs study though was that βthe homemade seal performed significantly better than the SSL seals issued by established vendorsβ.
So you can actually make your own seal and get the same effect.
3. SSL can give you better rankings
Back in August of 2014 Google made a subtle but very important change to their ranking algorithm. They started favouring sites with 2048-bit SSL.
Additionally, they said:
β[…] over time, we may decide to strengthen it, because weβd like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.β
This means that over time, theyβre going to strengthen the ranking signal that security plays in their overall algorithm.
So if the above factors havenβt convinced you yet, then maybe the promise of increased rankings in the search pages might.
Should you add SSL to your store?
Ideally, you should add SSL to your store right from the beginning.
If you havenβt already then thereβs no time like the present to swap your over to SSL site-wide.
To me, itβs pretty much a given that you need to add SSL to your store.
With the promise of better rankings and better conversions, itβs pretty much all positive and very little downside.
Additionally, there are many web hosts around now that will actually give you a free SSL certificate, so you donβt even need to worry about it costing you a fortune.
Has this article convinced you to add SSL to your store? SSL isnβt just for WooCommerce stores, you can see the benefits on all kinds of websites. Have you made the switch yet? Tell us about it in the comments!
One Response
nice post sir, thanks for sharing