Sirocco Digital
100% Australian owned and operated and based in Newcastle NSW, we design professional customised websites and flexible SEO strategies for companies throughout Australia and around the world.
Updating to https
Online security is proving to be a hot topic and more important to consumers than ever before, which is why the https protocol has quickly become the new website security standard around the world. This means that the data on your site or any data entered into your site via a webform is fully encrypted and classed as secure.
There are some major benefits in transitioning your website to the https protocol, besides just having it view as a 'secure site' in a website browser. Google is also using the https protocol as a ranking factor so sites that don’t have https are likely to rank below competitors that do have this enabled.
Most internet browsers now display an icon or text message to warn visitors when a website is not ‘secure’. You may see a small green locked padlock icon in front of the website address when a site is secure or a red unlocked padlock icon if the site isn't depending on which browser you use. This can also be seen in the url as ‘https' with an ’s' after the http, showing that the website address is secure.
The latest website browsers are designed to utilise the most recent version of the http protocol called http/2 which is reported to deliver site content faster and will only work with https websites. Page load speed is also a ranking factor and when a site is fast and easy to navigate (especially on mobile devices) it can significantly increase sales and conversions. Even in Google Ads now your site cannot be delivered via the parallel tracking protocol for super fast connection to your site without having https enabled.
When transitioning to https, there are some important updates that need to made to the sites linking structure to ensure the migration is smooth and all your site links and images are delivered over the https protocol. You will also need to update the main inbound links to the site like your Social Media pages, your Google Maps, Analytics and Ad accounts so they are pointing to https version of your website. A full list of site assets and external links to update can be viewed here.
With more competition online every day, obtaining organic rankings on the first page of Google is getting harder so everything we can do to increase your site visibility and deliver a more secure online experience is well worth the effort.
For more information on upgrading your site to https, please contact us and speak to a transition specialist.