To the point:
I’m going to be rolling out SSL/TLS to all my client websites that were built by and are currently hosted with me. I expect this process to be completed by the beginning of the New Year.
Clients that are hosting their websites with other providers, or who have built their own websites on my hosting, are welcome to get in touch to discuss securing their websites as well.
Away from the point:
You might have noticed that you’re browsing this website over a secure connection. There will be a little green padlock somewhere on your web browser, and instead of http at the beginning of the web address you’ve got an https.
All this technology seems rather mired in jargon – check out the Wikipedia article if you like seeing big words used very close together – but its benefits can be stated relatively easily:
1. Security/privacy: Connecting with an unsecured website is like using a primitive sort of phone line – stick a person between the two ends of the call, and with the right tools they can listen to both sides of the conversation. With SSL/TLS, even if someone is listening in, all they hear is incomprehensible noise.
2. Speed/future-proofing: This relates to how I am implementing SSL/TLS, which you can read more on below. It’s all about the SPDY and HTTP/2 protocols, and you can learn more about them here.
3. Search/professionalism: It’s been often reported over the last couple of years that Google are starting to prioritise secure sites in their search results. Regardless of the real impact of this, there’s no doubt that serving your website securely just looks more professional. It shows visitors you care about their privacy, and this is important for building trust.
How I’m doing this:
With secure connections to websites looking as though it is fast becoming the standard, a number of new services have arisen to make the process of getting the necessary certificates installed and functioning with little or no cost. This is key.
Whilst my clients have always had the option to purchase and install an SSL certificate in the past, the cost of doing so had for a long time been prohibitive, particularly so when operating a website as a shop window only – in other words, never handling important data like customer details.
Now, CloudFlare (a service that helps to speed up websites, which I use on all client websites) are offering all the necessary pieces of the puzzle to secure websites for free. You can read more about this here.
Why I’m not charging for this:
My ethos has always been that I don’t charge for things that cost me nothing. The bit of my time that I am investing into this I’m offering for free, because I believe in the universal importance of online security and don’t think it fair that anyone be ‘priced out’ of this.
Going forward, all new websites I launch, for new and existing clients, will be secured from the get-go. I feel this is an exciting step to take, and it’s another way I can set my work apart from much of the competition! So if you’ve got a project or small business that needs a better, more secure website: get in touch.