Why Should You use https on your website – 3 Benefits

Google has recently announced that its Chrome browser will display the not secure warning for websites that do not have the https protocol. But that is not just the only reason why companies should shift their websites from http to https. It was also disclosed by Google that it would award a boost in ranking for those websites that implement the https protocol. Here are other major benefits of switching to https for SEO in Kansas City:

Increased Referrer Data

Any traffic that moves from an https site to an http site will be included in the analytics report as direct traffic instead of referral traffic. This might be hard for you to determine the source of traffic for your website. When your website is secured with https, you will get the referrer data even if the traffic comes from a website that uses http. More websites are making the switch to https in the recent times, which is why it is important that you do it too.

Boost in Rankings:

As mentioned earlier, Google has announced that websites with https would receive a ranking boost. However, be informed that this shouldn’t be your only strategy to improve the ranking of your website. Incorporate other ranking factors such as speed optimization, competitive analysis, production of crawl errors, improving internal linking, creating quality content and more.

Better Privacy and Security:

https encryption will bring additional security to your website in different ways. Your website will be more secure for visitors, which will add a sense of confidence in them. https confirms the authenticity of your website, encrypts any communication that happens between the user and the website, protects sensitive data such as browsing history and credit card information. Any tampering by third parties will also be prevented by the same.

Here’s what you need to do to secure your web page rankings:

• Ensure that all the elements of your website including CSS files, JavaScript, widgets, images and more should be integrated with https.

• Make sure that the canonical tags are linked to the https version of your website URL

• The https version of your website should be registered on both Google search console and Bing Webmaster tool.

• 301 redirects should point to all https URLs.

• Utilize the fetch and render functionality in the Webmaster tool to make sure that Google will crawl your website.

• Update the sitemap accordingly on the webmaster tool. Don’t forget to preserve the http version of the sitemap for about 30 days to help search engines employ the 301 redirects.

• Update the robots.txt file by adding the new sitemaps.

• Sometimes there arises a requirement to update the analytics tracking code. Even though Google Analytics has the ability to track the https version, it would be ideal if you check the code yourself.

In a nutshell, switching your website from http to https protocol will bring a plethora of benefits in a short period of time. Get in touch with a professional of digital marketing in Kansas City for more assistance on the same.