Importance of HTTPS in SEO

According to a Google report that investigated 100 non-Google websites on the net that accounts for 25% of all the website traffic around the world, only a disturbingly small number of sites use this critical security protocol. What these websites don’t know is that HTTPS plays a significant role in search engine optimization (SEO) of the website. Why?

• Google opts for sites that are trusted and certified.
  Google places security as one of its top priority. Because of the tedious process of obtaining certification for your website, a higher ranking comes as a benefit for the efforts involved in getting a secured hypertext transfer protocol.
   
• It can bring in more traffic.
  Once users note that your website is secure, you will have more visitors. The more you have visitors, the more you can build your brand and gain the trust of your target audience. In other words, having lots of traffic will boost your SEO rankings.
   
• Your website isn't badly advertised.
  With the advent of updated browsers such as the Chrome 57, website visitors will be given a warning message if the site is not secure. This warning notification usually appears when they try to login or input their credit information using an HTTP website. This will negatively impact your website by reducing the amount of your web traffic.
   
• It improves organic mobile rankings.
  Google has introduced a new mobile index where websites that use HTTPS have better rankings. In fact, according to a study conducted by SEMRush in 2017, 65% of domain ranking for high-volume keywords are from HTTPS websites. Having an HTTPS domain is then extremely important if you want to compete in the high-volume keyword space.
   
• It comes with enhanced browsing speeds.
  You’ll enjoy faster browsing speeds by enabling HTTPS. Why? In contrast to HTTP/2 which uses multiplexing to async requests via binary streams, HTTPS uses TLS which allows it to skip the 3-step-handshake and goes straight to the main conversation. This makes HTTPS 70% faster than HTTP.
  
  Since users will be able to access your website and information at a faster rate, they’re more likely to stay on your site.

Getting an HTTPS connection is vital if you wish to rank higher in Google, improve your web traffic, and increase your conversion rate. It provides the necessary layer of security for your website.