It used to be that you only needed an SSL certificate on your website if you collected sensitive personal or financial information. But now, all websites should have one whether you collect sensitive data or not.

• SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is used to keep sensitive information sent across the internet encrypted so that only the intended recipient can understand it. This is important because the information you send on the internet is passed from computer to computer to get to the destination server. Any computer in between you and the server can see your credit card numbers, usernames and passwords, and other sensitive information if it is not encrypted with an SSL certificate. When an SSL certificate is used, the information becomes unreadable to everyone except for the server you are sending the information to. This protects it from hackers and identity thieves.
• Having an SSL certificate shows your visitors that you are a safe and trustworthy website and business.
• It complies with Google’s rules. If Google thinks your site is not secure, it will alert (and usually scare off) visitors. The result? They click away from your site, which is the exact opposite of what you want them to do.
• 40% of Google’s page one organic search results feature an HTTPS site. Google has encouraged webmasters to make the migration to a secure site for a while now and has been giving an increasing amount of weight in ranking boosts to websites that are HTTPS. Keep in mind, those sites ranking on page one of Google are also likely following many other best practices in order to gain and retain their valued page one real estate, so it’s not a surprise that of those ranking on page one, more are following Google’s heavy suggestion toward having a secure site!

• Purchase of 256 bit SSL encryption certificate
• Installation onto server
• Configuration of your website to force HTTPS protocol including database changes and .htaccess changes.
• Resubmitting your website to Google with new secure protocol