SSL Security
When you make a website, you want it to be a simple and safe experience. In the world of data miners and intrusive ads, it’s not always a guarantee that your website won’t steal your information or shoot pop-ups at your customers. With Northwest, your safety and privacy is guaranteed.
Northwest’s SSL Security Service keeps you and your customers secure. When we host your website, we always protect your website with SSL Security for free. Just choose a domain name, grab website hosting at checkout, and we’ll get started.
What Is SSL Security?
SSL security is a digital service that protects a website and its users. Websites that have SSL security encrypt (or hide) information like customer’s credit card data so that transactions and visits to the website are safe. You can tell a website is safe by the URL. A secure website will have “https” at the beginning. The “S” stands for secure.
When you purchase SSL Security, you are purchasing something called an SSL certificate. This isn’t a physical certificate. It is a digital security subscription. Typical SSL certificates need to be updated every 13 months. Depending on who you go through, this can be a huge upfront cost every year, costing you upwards of $800. Our SSL Security Service is more user-friendly, so instead of a big annual fee, we include it free of charge for every website we host.
It is up to each individual website to install a SSL certificate on their server.
How Do SSL Certificates Work?
SSL certificates work a bit like a subscription service. Think about your computer’s anti-virus software. You buy it as soon as you get a computer, but eventually those pop ups remind you it’s time to renew. In order to keep your computer safe, the software has to go through routine updates. The same is true for SSL security on your website. You have to renew the certificate to keep your website safe.
What Information Is Included In an SSL Certificate?
An SSL certificate has information that it transmits when your site interacts with web servers. That information is used to validate that your website is safe. Your SSL certificate will contain the following information:
- Certificate authority
- Certificate authority’s digital signature
- Issuance date
- Expiration date
- Public key
- Version of the software
- Your domain name
What Is a Domain Name?
A domain name is the web address of your website. For example, ours is northwestregisteredagent.com. Your domain name is the first step of starting a website. You choose a domain (or get a randomly assigned domain) before you start building your website. Because of that, you need a domain name before you need SSL security.
Search For Your Domain Here
How To Find a Website’s SSL Certificate
You can tell if a website has SSL security because of the small padlock at the front of the website URL. Even if the lock is not directly visible in your URL, users can easily find the connection safety in just a few clicks. Another way to tell if a website has SSL security is to check if the URL has the prefix “https.”
By clicking on the padlock or the site information icon, you can see if the site is secure. For example, it may literally say “Connection is secure” or “Not secure.”
Why Trust That Websites with an SSL Certificate Are Secure?
Before issuing an SSL certificate, a Certificate Authority (CA) checks out the domain and owner details of the website. Like a bouncer checking your I.D. before letting you into a 21+ bar, the CA checks that you are who you say you are. After you’re verified, you’re issued your certificate, and your website is considered safe by other web browsers.
Does My Business Need to Use SSL Security?
Depending on your industry and business needs, your business website might be legally required to have SSL or another form of security. For example, businesses offering payment/online transactions must include an SSL certificate.
Northwest’s SSL Security Service
We include SSL Security on all of the websites we host. This means no matter if you have a small mom-and-pop coffee shop or a bustling digital business, anyone who comes to your website can be assured that your website is safe. Safe to browse, safe to share information, and safe to make purchases.
It doesn’t matter how big or small your business is, whether or not you’ve incorporated or are running as a sole proprietorship, your information and your customers’ information should always be protected. SSL security is another layer of Northwest’s promise of Privacy By Default®.
There are just three steps:
- Get a domain name.
- Order web hosting.
- Launch your website.
The good news? You can do all three at the same time with Northwest. We’ll secure your domain name, host your website, customize your about, home, and contact pages, and protect your private data with SSL security.
Get Started Today
What You Get With Our SSL Security Service
Our SSL Security Service is automatically included with our Website Hosting serivce. We include this to keep your and your clients’ information safe. Here’s what our service offers.
The annual fee for an SSL certificate varies but can be upwards of a thousand dollars. With Northwest, it’s included with our Website Hosting service. When you get a domain with us, we give you web hosting free for 90 days. After that, you can keep web hosting (and SSL security) for just $9/month. Plus, since the service renews monthly, you won’t have to worry about your certificate expiring and leaving your business website unsecured.
Remember making up a secret language to pass notes in class? SSL uses the same principles as that, just much harder for outsiders to crack. SSL security encrypts the data shared on your site, protecting you from a data breach. This is especially important for websites that collect customer information, like credit card numbers. Having an SSL certificate is expected for online businesses, so getting one is important for maintaining a good reputation.
Search engines take a lot of things into consideration when ranking websites, and SSL is one of the few aspects you can directly control. If your website isn’t protected by SSL, search engines will consider it an unsafe site, ranking it further down in search results. The better you rank, the higher the chance that someone will click on your website. An SSL certificate makes it more likely that search engines will see your website as legitimate, helpful, and trustworthy.
Although the everyday internet user might not be able to tell you what an SSL certificate is, they know when a website is safe. That’s because most internet browsers will warn the user if a website isn’t secure. The URL of a website with an SSL certificate will begin with “https,” and will have a padlock symbol next to it. When a customer is looking to visit a website or make a purchase, they might think twice about a website their computer warns them isn’t safe. And worse, they wouldn’t be wrong. Without SSL security, their data is more likely to end up in the wrong hands.
