Your visitors are receiving a website warning. Your website is about to become invisible. Google and others have been talking about this move for over a year and as of January 2017 it is being implemented. This is all related to something called SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificates. Every website that collects personal information, emails, credit cards and similar information is being required to have one of these SSL certificates installed on the server they are located on. Google has made it clear that one of the search engine ranking metrics will be having a secure site. So, without getting into the technical weeds, here is how you can check to see if you are being affected and if your visitors are receiving a website warning:
- Enter your website address in your browser and hit enter
- Look just to the left of the address in your browser
- If you see a small i in a circle like this you are being warned that the site is not secure
- This is the first stage warning from the search engines. People can still see your site but as visitors become aware of this warning, they will begin to leave prematurely.
- The next phase of these warnings is much more aggressive and harmful. They will see this message on the screen, not your website.
- Once your visitor sees this page, the odds are they are leaving without ever seeing your information. The ONLY way that they can get to your website is to click on the small ADVANCED link in the bottom left of their screen. How many of your website customers will click that link?
There are several approaches to getting an SSL certificate installed for your website, depending on what type of site you have and where it is hosted. Fees range from free to several hundred dollars and up.
This is something that most website owners just don’t want to mess around with. Ask your web host what services they offer. If you use a web developer, they might be able to help. If you just don’t want to mess around with this and understand the need to act quickly – the team at FilltheFunnel can do it all for you. Just send me an email on the Contact page or click the orange Call Me button at the top of the page and you can get this taken care of.
Just don’t put this off and have your visitors receive a website warning. Don’t risk losing the valuable web traffic you already have.