The Importance of SSL Certificates in SEO Rankings

When our website goes online, all we want is heavy traffic and number of visitors. Without a great search engine optimization strategy, generating traffic or acquiring visitors would be challenging. To make each experience the best for users, Google has been coming up new search engine ranking factors every time.

It is important that we build our SEO strategies, considering Google’s search engine ranking factors for our website to rank within the top results of the search engine results page (SERP). You need to have a clear understanding of how these SEO strategies work. But not many know how Google’s algorithms function.

This information is secure as it might tamper the SEO, while people would take means of deceit for better rankings, which would do no good to the users. Thus, adhering to Google’s search engine ranking strategies would help your site to rank better. As part of these strategies, a few years back, Google had announced that websites having an SSL certificate (https://) have greater chances of entering the search engine results pages.

For instance, consider you have two similar websites. One of them comes with an SSL certificate and the other one doesn’t have an SSL certificate. So the one with an SSL certificate would have more advantage than the one without the SSL certificate. Though there are still a few theories about the role of SSL certificates in improving a website’s visibility on the search engines, we will take you through the details on what this certificate does, and its influence on SEO.

Let us First Take a Look at What an SSL Certificate Is

Secure Sockets Layer or SSL certificates helps in securing the information that your users share through your website. It acts as a protection layer for your website. The original definition of SSL is that it is the standard security technology that will help to exchange or pull in the flow of an encrypted link via a web server and a browser. With this link, you can ensure that any data that is exchanged between a web browser and the server is confidential.

Let us think of a situation wherein a visitor reaches an ‘https:/ website’. With the SSL certificate, all data will be safe and there is no vulnerability of information loss. The encryption will ensure that all information is safe and secure. This is what we want for our site and to provide our users with. When their information is safe, it will help build people’s trust in your site.

Now, it is important to understand how keeping your site’s information safe with an SSL certificate contributes to SEO rankings.

SSL is an important part of your website and as we discussed it helps build trust. This trust is an important part of your website’s search engine ranking. This certificate could affect a website’s ranking in several ways as given below:

Better Rankings And Visibility Over Search Engines

Now, you know the importance of having an SSL certificate for your website and how it protects your website for good. There was a confirmation from Google that when you keep your website secured with an SSL certificate, your website will stay safely encrypted, given you have fulfilled all other search engine ranking parameters. Though we still don’t have an exact idea on how well does this certificate influence the SEO rankings of your site.

If you happen to compare it with a site that has a number of powerful backlinks and belongs to a similar niche, then we might not be able to draw conclusions on how this affects your site. But it looks like a sumptuous volume of backlinks can cover up for not having an SSL certificate when it comes to rankings. This means that if you just have an SSL certificate and have not worked on fixing the other SEO checklists, then there are least chances that you would be pulling your site toward getting better visibility over search engines.

Also, it means that along with all the other SEO factors strategized and accomplished appropriately, it would be important that you have this factor (SSL certificate) taken care of. Then, we can ensure that the website has taken care of all SEO-related factors that will take it to the top of the search engines. So if you had been doing all SEO things right, but still couldn’t find out what was stopping your site from reaching the top, then you should start thinking of SSL.

Maybe you haven’t migrated from HTTP to HTTPS yet, which is pulling your site down. However, once you have an SSL certificate, then nothing can stop you from reaching the top. But some experts are of the opinion that HTTPs might not impact the search engine rankings to a great extent, while some think that HTTPs might actually have no role in bolstering your site’s rankings over the search engines. But since Google insists on having an SSL certificate, it is important that we get it as it will help build trust among your users.

Better User Experience Improves SEO

We have already discussed how people trust a site with an SSL certificate. And with a better user experience comes better rankings. Google Chrome wants to ensure that users have a great experience on websites, which is why it warns visitors when they are on a site with no certifications about how safe it is.

Google’s idea is to notify people to make sure the sites that they own are safe and people can share their information, knowing that everything they share over your site would be private and confidential. Also, since Google warns people about a site that is not safe, people are reluctant to visit sites that do not have an SSL certificate. No one wants to share their information on a site that might not be safe.

This means if a site offers a user experience that is poor, then it would be challenging for the site to rank on top positions in the SERPs. So make sure you get an SSL certificate now if you want to offer your people a great user experience.

Let us think of a situation where a user reaches your site after querying for a related keyword in the search engine. And next, the person enters the site and is looking to purchase a product. But Google warns that this site is not safe. What would the person do? He or she would leave the site with no doubt. When this kind of pattern starts repeating, Google takes a note on it. Once it happens too frequently, automatically your site’s rankings in the SERPs goes down and the visitor flow to your site will start declining.

Then, it would be really challenging for your site to come back to the top. Once the traffic to your site declines, everything, including traffic, engagement rate, and backlinks starts to decline.

Why Take the Risk? Install an SSL Certificate Today

Unless you have an encrypted website, you might not be able to ensure your users that the data they share with you would be safe. This again reduces the chances of getting customers, thereby affecting your site’s rankings over the search engines.

Whether or not SSL contributes to helping your site rank better, it is important that you install it for the safety of your people’s information.

Acodez is a prominent digital marketing company in India offering all kinds of digital marketing services which includes, SEO, SMM, SEM, Inbound marketing, etc. We are also a web development company in India giving solutions to businesses in India and abroad. Our broad experience of having worked on numerous projects has helped us know the requirements of the clients and providing the best services to them. For more information, contact us today.