A lot can be said about establishing trust with your customers once they visit your website. Years ago, trust badges, secure server graphics, and customer testimonials were just a few things that online store owners were recommended to have on their websites to build customer confidence.
But times change!
Today, the number one recommendation for store owners is to make sure your website is secure by getting an SSL certificate and moving from http:// to https://.
There are two reasons for the recommendation.
First and foremost is security. By installing an SSL certificate and moving to https:// the connection from the visitor’s web browser to the server is secure. Having a secure connection ensures that the data being passed, such as a credit card number, is being transmitted via a secure channel. This also activates the “lock” icon in the web browser which indicates to the visitor that their connection is secure.
If a website is not secure, or a page on a site being served via https:// has portions of it such as a script or form that is not being passed through a secure connection, the “lock” icon will appear broken or a “not secure” message will be displayed. This indicates that the connection is unsecure and caution should be exercised if entering sensitive information.
The second reason for the recommendation comes from Google. Last year, Google announced that their Chrome web browser, the most used browser out there, would begin warning users via the URL search bar when they were on an unsecure site.
That alone should strike fear in any eCommerce store owner. None of us want our customers to see any type of warning when visiting our sites, as that’s a conversion killer.
Along with the warning, the SEO community has speculated that Google will prioritize https:// sites in web searches. So if you’ve worked on your SEO for years and obtained good organic placement, don’t risk a penalty by not going secure.
If you haven’t transitioned to SSL yet, don’t wait another minute… do it.
For Yahoo! Store owners the process is pretty simple and of course, we’re here to help you every step of the way. So let’s go over the steps that need to be taken to prepare your site for https://.
Step 1: Make sure all images, scripts, and 3rd party applications such as search, shipping assistants, etc, are being called via https://. Like I mentioned earlier in this article, if your site is secure but a script or an image on a page is being called from http:// instead of https:// the “not secure” warning will be displayed. That’s not good!
How do you do this? Well, you can go through your store’s CSS, variables and all your product descriptions where links or images may reside and look for URLs and make adjustments – a very time-consuming process. Or, you can have us do it for you!
With our SSL Image & Code Cleanup Service, we’ll do the legwork for you. Our wizards will go through your site combing through all the code looking for http:// and either making the adjustments for you or letting you know about any 3rd party code that isn’t https:// complaint that we are unable to fix.
FREE TOOL: Click here to use our free SSL Readiness Test to scan your site and see if it’s ready to move to Step 2.
Once your site code is cleaned up and ready to go, it’s time to move on to the next step.
Step 2: In your Yahoo! Store Manager, find the new “Security Manager.” In there you will request and install a free SSL certificate for your store from Yahoo! But there is a caveat! The installation will fail if Step 1 was not completed properly and there are still unsecure elements on your site. So it’s imperative that Step 1 is completed first and completed properly.
Once these two steps have been completed, you’re all set!
We do recommend that once you’ve moved to https:// you take the time to update your site URL in Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, etc so these search engines know you’ve made the switch.
Anyone visiting your site from http:// links will automatically redirect to https:// so there is no need to do anything else.
If you haven’t moved to https:// yet, I can’t stress how important it is that you start right away. The process is simple and, as always, we’re here to help you every step of the way. Take the time today to start with Step 1 and let us begin the site cleanup. Just click here to order the service and we’ll get to work right away.
If you have questions, feel free to reach out to me at scott@yourstorewizards.com and I’ll be happy to answer them!
Scott Sanfilippo
General Manager, YSW
Scott Sanfilippo began his eCommerce journey in 1994 by co-founding one of the Internet’s first online retailers, TheFerretStore.com, which was acquired by PetCo in 2006. In 2001, he co-founded the eCommerce design and marketing firm Solid Cactus, which was acquired by web.com in 2009. Today, Scott is the General Manager of Your Store Wizards and lives in Delray Beach, FL. Scott can be contacted at scott@yourstorewizards.com.