Strategic Certificate Management: The Impact on User Trust and Business Success
Trust is the cornerstone of E-commerce. Broken trust translates to bad business.
Security certificates for your website are essential building blocks for a trust-based relationship between you and your customers.
These certificates reassure visitors that data transfer between their browsers and your website is safe, secure, and private. According to research, 85% of shoppers will abandon a purchase if they determine that a website is insecure.
Despite their importance, SSL/TLS certificates are often untracked and unmanaged. Poor management of website security certificates results in unplanned service outages that, in turn, damage your brand’s reputation, customer trust, and revenue stream.
Here, we delve into the pivotal role of an automated certificate management system in establishing trust among users while dramatically improving your business’s operational efficiency and bottom line.
The Impact of Good Certificate Manager on User Trust and Business Success
1. Establishes Trust and Credibility
Valid SSL certificates contribute to the trustworthiness and credibility of your website in the following ways:
Authentication and Validation
Besides end-to-end encryption, SSL certificates authenticate and validate your website’s identity. For instance, Extended Validation certificates display your organization’s name in the address bar, instilling users confidence about the legitimacy of your website.
Trust Indicators
When tech-savvy users visit your website, they are keen to check whether or not your website has trust indicators such as the “Secure” label and the padlock icon. These visual cues reassure visitors that their connection is secure, leading to increased conversions and user retention.
Protection Against Phishing
SSL certificates prevent phishing attacks by ensuring safe data transfer. Phishing attacks are unlikely to succeed if your website has a valid SSL certificate, which fosters trust with your customers.
2. Boosts Business Success
Best practices in managing digital certificates set up your business for success in the following ways:
Higher Ranking on Google
Google officially announced HTTPS as a ranking signal, which means that if your website has valid SSL certificates, it will receive a boost in search rankings. Higher rankings result in more site visitors, leading to more sales.
Enhanced Website Loading Speed
Valid digital certificates also increase your website speed. SSL/TLS certificates use HTTP/2 protocol, which enables websites to load faster. Faster loading speeds enhance SEO rankings, improve user experience, and boost conversions and consumer loyalty.
Reduced Bounce Rates
If your users feel that their data is safe, they are more likely to stay longer, explore the website, and engage with content. Also, SSL certificates give customers peace of mind when sharing personal data to purchase on your website, reducing bounce rates.
On the contrary, visitors will not think twice about fleeing your site if they can’t see the security seal.
Inspire Trust and Augment Your Success with a Certificate Manager Platform
With increasing use cases of digital certificates and expanding threat surface, proper digital certificate lifecycle management is close to a nightmare. IT teams must track hundreds of certificates daily, continuously monitor usage, stay ahead of certificate expirations, and detect and remediate vulnerabilities.
Managing all these processes manually is daunting and downright ineffective. In addition, manual processes are costly and take a toll on your IT teams.
The best approach here is to deploy a cutting-edge certificate lifestyle management solution like Sectigo. From discovery and provisioning to revocation, replacement, renewal, and all the subtasks in between, Sectigo empowers you to manage all certificate workflows from a single interface at the click of a button.