Why you need to padlock your site
Padlocking your site states that your site is secure. This is done by installing an SSL certificate on your website. But why would you want to do this?
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Increases Google rankings
In 2014 Google decided to place greater emphasis on padlocked sites in their search results. Websites that are padlocked will have a much better chance of ranking higher in the search results than websites do not.
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It improves customer trust
How safe would you feel if your browser warned you about a website being “not secure”? Some browsers now notify visitors when websites are not secure. This then puts doubts in their mind if it’s safe to look at that site and even if it’s a reputable, legitimate site. It could be possible that in the near future website may even get blocked to load on the browser. Ensuring that your site is padlocked improves customer trust in your site and what you do. Visitors are far more likely to do business with you or even revisit your website.
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Protects customer information
An SSL certificate means that any data from the visitor is locked and can be only unlocked by the intended recipient. This means that it is protected by hackers, as the data will be unreadable to them. This is especially important if you are using a website to make payments and it is widely known that you should not enter your credit card on sites that are not secure. Even if your website does not take payments it also protects the data submitted by users in a form or a login.