If you own any businesses with a website or hold any websites you want to rank, then you must have heard about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It helps you to rank your website in the search engine while driving more traffic to your website, giving you the lead, and generating more revenue. This is one of the most crucial steps for achieving the desired success.
SEO mainly focuses on Google as it’s the leading and most influential search engine in today’s world. But it’s not an easy task to rank in google as it has more than 200 search engine ranking factors that are only guessed by the optimizers. Google actively considers these factors before ranking any websites in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Though SEO experts always try to find out the actual factors that affect the rank or the algorithms google actually uses, they hardly get any proper idea. It’s because Google doesn’t want any type of manipulation or unfair means to overtake search engine rankings, so they carefully safeguard the information. Briefly speaking, google never ensures any process or steps that will definitely improve the rankings in SERPs. However, experts have found out some generic ways like “High-quality content” or “Getting powerful links” are beneficial for improving rankings.
Though google maintains the confidentiality of its ranking factors or algorithm, on August 6, 2014, they stated a factor which is an “SSL certificate”. They confirm that website with an SSL certificate is always given priority for ranking in the SERPs. They specifically ensure that among the websites that have everything almost similar, the one with an SSL will get a slight advantage in rankings.
Undoubtedly SSL is important for SEO but do you know properly have an idea about SSL? Or what does it do? Why is it even necessary? Or is it even important? Get a proper idea about how important is SSL for SEO from this article.
What is an SSL?
Secure Sockets Layer, popularly known as SSL, is a security technology for web servers and browsers. SSL builds an additional safety layer that safeguards the shared information by the visitors to a website. When anyone visits a website that has https://, the SSL certificate creates a layer of safety to ensure that whatever information the visitor is sharing won’t be leaked to any third party. This is a significant safety measure.
SSL.com give a proper definition of SSL, which is, “SSL is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browser remain private.”
Privacy is a significant concern for any user, and SSL ensures your information is safe and is not hampered or leaked to any third party. It protects the information through an encrypted connection and ensures that the data always remain private and secure. So, SSL is a great addition to provide a secure browsing experience.
How important is SSL for SEO?
When you have already learned about SSL, you can understand how important it is for safe web browsing and how finely it works. But, you might have confused about its impact on SEO. Or is it even important? Undoubtedly, SSL affects SEO significantly. Let’s understand how important is SSL for SEO and how it affects the SEO. So, dive into the article to know more.
Boost the search engine rankings
SSL directly impacts the ranking of search engine results pages (SERPs) of Google. As Google has already confirmed that SSL is one of their major ranking factors, there is no doubt about SSL’s importance in SEO. Google considers any website as a secured one when it has an SSL certificate. Websites with SSL certificates get an advantage in ranking over other websites because it uses a secure and encrypted method for the information and data the visitors share on the website.
So far, SEO experts have known about the impact of SSL on SEO. But, the precise impact of the SSL on any website’s SEO ranking is difficult to calculate. More precisely, if we compare two websites based on the same niche, then the one with an SSL certificate will get the advantage in rankings. But, if the one without an SSL has more powerful backlinks, then it’s tough to predict which one will get more advantage as Google always keeps its ranking factors and algorithm concealed.
In this case, having extra powerful backlinks will always be an advantage and it can easily overcome the disadvantage of not having an SSL. So, you have to understand only SSL won’t improve anything magically. But, when you compare your website with others that have the same amount of backlinks, and the same type of content, then having an SSL certificate will definitely give your ranking a powerful boost.
If you are doing SEO for your websites, doing all the things right, and considering the ranking factors as sufficiently as you can, then having an SSL certificate will provide your website the much-needed boost to overtake other websites in a challenging and competitive niche. There are many examples of websites that get a significant boost in rankings when they switch from http:// to https://. Brian Dean from Backlinko has studied and researched using the data of SimilarWeb, Ahrefs, MarketMuse, and SEMRush. He gives a verdict that “HTTPS is moderately correlated with higher search engine rankings on Google’s first page.”
SSL supports privacy and security, which Google, as well as normal user, adore. So, you must consider an SSL certificate for your website to get your expected SEO result, as SSL definitely affects SEO.
Improve SEO by enhancing the user experience
Undoubtedly SSL improves the user experience by providing a safe and secure web browsing experience. If you consider yourself a user, then you will definitely understand the importance of your information’s safety and security and prioritize the safer one.
When a user visits a hazardous website, he gets visible indicators that the website is unsafe or not secure enough to share information. As a result, he will immediately leave the site and won’t be visiting again. Google Chrome will definitely ensure it; consequently, a ranking downfall is a must to happen.
Google Chrome is keeping track of all these user experience and safety issues and creating much-needed awareness among general internet users about the safety and security of internet browsing. People are becoming more aware of their safety and think twice before visiting unencrypted websites. Research shows that gaining personal information on http:// websites is becoming more difficult as they are sites without SSL certificates. As a result, organic visitors are decreasing on these sites while negatively affecting the ranking.
So the point is that websites with poor user experience can never grab the users in a consistent form, and consequently, they can not keep their rank on top positions in the SERPs. The emphasis point is any unencrypted websites without having an SSL can’t provide a good user experience. For instance, if you search for a keyword, and find a page in google, visit the page, but because of a bad user experience, you quit the site and never visit it, then it will obviously have a bad impact on the site. Because the site is losing its organic traffic, and google is also tracking the user’s movement on the site.
Google detects this behavior of the users and, as a result, downgrades that website in the SERPs. But all these won’t happen with a website with an SSL certificate, as it ensures a good user experience, safety, and security. So, people automatically revisit those sites and recommend them to others. You get automatic organic traffic, and google tracks this positively and ranks your site in the SERPs.
This discussion has undoubtedly described how important is SSL for SEO, and it has a great impact on the desired SEO result. Clearly, SSL is a major ranking factor for Google, and it must be given preference while you are focusing on SEO. So, indeed SSL is a major and important factor in achieving the desired SEO result.
