Can SSL Certificates Boost Your Conversion Rate?

Can SSL Certificates Boost Your Conversion Rate?

When you are starting off with your ecommerce business, you must consider various factors to ensure its long-term success, stability, and sustainability. The trust indicator of your site, for instance, is one of the crucial areas that make people confide in their personal information with you to initiate a transaction. 

It is obvious that trust indicators play a vital role in triggering the conversion rate of an ecommerce business website. When it comes to the trust signals, there are several of them to consider, the most common one being the installation of an SSL certificate.

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of how different trust indicators like SSL certificates can improve the conversion rate, it is good to know what conversion rate is. 

What Is Conversion Rate? 

In your ecommerce site, you might be using several widgets for website visitors to try out (the product put on sale, newsletter subscription, eBooks, are just a few of them). However, have you ever wondered how many people try out these from a normal day’s total visitor count? 

The sum you get is your website’s conversion rate. The best way to increase the conversion rate is to diminish people’s fear and concerns regarding online safety while transacting through your service. A website that is secured with SSL will be more likely to be trusted by people. Such websites will have an increased conversion rate when compared to websites without SSL certificates. 

What Is SSL? 

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is a protocol used in websites to establish a secured connection between the server and the browser. It is used with HTTPS for secured connections. In short, websites that are equipped with HTTPS come with an SSL certificate. 

When your prospect loads your ecommerce site on his web browser, a connection is established conversion rate between his browser and the server where the site is hosted. If the site is not secured via HTTPS, the personal data that the user shares on the website can easily be accessed by hackers for covert purposes. So, this is why getting SSL certificates is not only a necessity for eCommerce store owners but a must. Even if you use a headless e-commerce platform, make sure it comes with security features or invest in web hosting.

SSL Certificate as A Confidence Building Factor

Integration of an SSL certificate like single domain, multi domain or wildcard ssl acts as a confidence building factor for people in addition to being just a visual additive on the website. It leaves the website with a green lock when it is loaded on a conversion rate browser and helps to convince the visitor.

Can SSL Certificates Improve Conversion Rate?

Long story short, SSL certificate is the most obvious green signal that people use to validate the authenticity of an ecommerce website. With the increase in the number of hackings, data breaches, scams, spam, and myriads of similar online security threats rampant in the cyberspace, people are quite sceptical these days about trusting a new ecommerce site or service. 

People are both worried and informed at the same time. When fear and knowledge conversion rate influence their decision making, the extent of challenge ecommerce owners must face is even more.

SSL being the most fundamental trust signal, thus, play a very crucial role in boosting the conversion rate. Many studies and surveys conducted among people about their online shopping practices indicate that about 90 to 95 percent of the people would only shop from an ecommerce site that has a green address bar. That is in turn a clear indication that the website is secured with a reliable SSL certificate. 

How To Get an SSL Certificate for An Ecommerce Website? 

SSL certificate is a digital entity and can be easily downloaded from the services that provide it. Before you could get it, you need to subject your site to a review and get it passed. Depending on the type of SSL certificate you are going to use for your site, for instance single domain, multi domain, wildcard SSL. 

If you consider single domain as a budget SSL then, Comodo SSL certificate, RapidSSL certificate, Sectigo SSL certificate are few popular certs that you can consider. 

Basic level SSL certificates require only low-level screening like verification of the site ownership. For advanced SSL certificates, you will have to pass more complex verification which will include producing proof about the association between your website and your business. 

Choosing The Right SSL Certificate

Having determined to strengthen the safety layers of your ecommerce site by installing an SSL certificate, the next important step is choosing the right certificate that will benefit you and fit your budget. There are several different types of them to choose from 

  • Domain validation SSL: Used to verify your domain ownership and is suitable for personal websites and blogs. 
  • Multiple domains SSL: If you own multiple domains and websites, this is an ideal option. 
  • Organization Validation SSL: verifies the domain and the organization that owns it. 
  • Wildcard SSL: Suitable to use if your website hosts subdomains that need to be validated as well. In this case, Comodo Essential SSL Wildcard is a good example. 
  • Extended Validation SSL: This is the ideal choice for banks, financial entities, and ecommerce services as it involves a tighter vetting process.

Once you have decided which type of SSL certificate to choose for your website, the next step is to request it from the service provider. You can expect anywhere between five minutes to a couple of days for the approval of your request. 

Create A Certificate Signing Request 

The next step is to go to your domain registrar and generate a certificate signing request. The CSR (Certificate Signing Request) will contain information about the domain name for which the SSL certificate is to be applied and the server where it is hosted and other state, country, email details. 

Installing The Certificate 

Following the approval of your SSL application, it will be ready for downloading and installation. The certificate is to be installed on your hosted server and the steps for that depend on your server configuration, hosting type, and other factors.

After you have successfully installed the SSL certificate for your website, it will begin to show the green lock signal – a symbol that tells your prospect that your site is now secured. 

Expect to see gradual growth in your sales conversion following this. In short, SSL certificate integration is not only a technical requirement you need to fulfil to strengthen your cyber security measures but also an effective mechanism to boost your trust among your prospects.