The quick answer: Yes. You should consider upgrading your website to have an SSL certificate.
The not-so-quick-but-very-detailed-answer:
The Digital Services Team is always looking for opportunities to improve our offering to clients. For Search Engine Optimization (SEO), this includes staying on top of Google’s latest ranking factors and determining the best way of implementing those strategies into our clients’ SEO campaigns.
A few months ago, you might remember that one of our clients was suspiciously contacted by a potential phishing scam masked as a legitimate company. This made our already sensitive spidey-senses tingle and we knew we had to take the next step in protecting our clients (you!) as well as your potential customers.
That said, MYM will be upgrading all of our client’s sites that we host to include an SSL Certificate.
Why we’ve decided to do this:
We highly value the security of our clients
This is a move that can help your SEO Rankings
Wondering what the heck SSL is? You’re not alone. We’ve done our best to answer the questions that you might have below.
What is SSL?
An SSL (short for Secure Sockets Layer), is the most globally used form of internet security. It takes care of securing and encrypting personal information that is sent on a website, keeping consumers safe when doing business or submitting their personal information on a website.
Why do I need my site to be SSL?
The majority of our remodeling and contractor clients don’t do much in the realm of e-commerce or collecting credit card information directly from their website. However, 99.9999% of our clients do collect personal information on their lead forms. (Name, Address, Telephone Numbers…etc.) This is all personal and confidential information that put in the wrong hands (Phishers!) can cause a lot of damage.
Google knows what the Phishers are doing. They hate it.
SSL gives your website an extra level of consumer protection and shows your potential customers that you care about their security.
What does this mean for me?
If MYM hosts your website, then this means that we are offering you the option to upgrade your site’s security to SSL at a reduced cost.
If MYM does NOT host your website, we suggest you check with your website host to see what your options are for upgrading your website to an SSL. You can feel free to give me a call, and I can help you get in touch with the right people at your hosting company.
Why didn’t you make this change sooner?
Although, it has come up in many of our meetings and is almost always on our Quarterly SEO Review agenda, we honestly didn’t see the need to make this upgrade up until now.
One of the things that goes along with the SEO world is filtering out the noise. In a world where everyone is a “guru” “expert” or “enthusiast” about SEO, it’s hard to know who to trust and what to believe.
We do our best to mute the noise and only bring you things that will help you grow.
It’s our job to figure out what strategies are best, test them out, and then pass the ones that are valuable onto our clients. We put the others on the back burner until it makes the most sense to implement them.
SSL is being brought up from the back burner. It’s time.
Is this upgrade optional?
As of right now, upgrading your website to an SSL is optional. However, it’s only a matter of time before it’s required and Google starts penalizing sites for not having an SSL certificate. We highlyrecommend that you make the transition to an SSL website as soon as possible.
What happens if I decide not to upgrade my website to an SSL? // Will not upgrading negatively affect my SEO?
Not getting an SSL Certificate will not negatively impact your SEO – that is, you won’t be at risk for a manual penalty. Yet.
However, it also won’t help your SEO. Google has been saying for quite some time that they use SSL as a ranking factor for Search Engine Optimization.
For now [SSL is] only a very lightweight signal — affecting fewer than 1% of global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high quality content— while we give webmasters time to switch to HTTPS. But over time, we may decide to strengthen it, because we’d like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.
“Lightweight Signal”back in 2014… and it’s only gotten stronger over the past 2 years where online commerce has become so commonplace.
How will this affect my ranking / how quickly will I see results?
Google openly admits that they rank sites higher who have an SSL Certificate.
As far as how quickly you’ll see results – within a few days.
The immediate results you’ll see are:
– a change to the beginning of your web address. It will go from ‘http’ to ‘https’. The ‘s’ is for ‘secure’
– a lock icon will show up next to your web address in the search bar
The results you’ll see over time are:
– an increase of your SEO Ranking
– an increase of your click through rate (CTR). When searchers see that your website is secure, they’re more likely to click on your website over an unsecured one.
Will I experience any website downtime?
Nope! We’ve already tested this on our own website and we experienced zero downtime.
How much will this upgrade cost?
If you are on a premium SEO plan with Monopolize Your Marketplace, we will be absorbing the cost of this for you by exchanging 1-2 pieces of content in your monthly SEO Package.
If you are getting the basic level of SEO that is included with your bundle package with MYM, we will still offer you the discounted price, but we will not be able to substitute content to cover the fee.
Why? In order to cover the fee for obtaining the SSL Certificate, we’d have to eliminate 100% of your content for 3 months. This would be detrimental to your SEO, and you will see negative ranking results from this.
We only do SEO that works. This strategy would not work.
If you are one of our bundle SEO clients and want to upgrade, give us a call. We’ll get you taken care of.
Why do I have to pay for this upgrade? Shouldn’t MYM cover this fee?
We wish upgrading was free.
Every single hosting site charges for an SSL upgrade. We did negotiate a lower price for our clients and we’re happy to be able to pass that savings down to you.
In a day in age where internet security is on the top of consumers’ priority lists when browsing the web, Google has made it all but required that you have an SSL Certificate on your site. As of right now, this is optional. However, it’s only a matter of time before it’s required.
If you have any other questions about upgrading your website to an SSL, or any aspect of SEO, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re always here.
We are thrilled to be able to continue to help you grow your business.
If you’re not a techie, Penguin is an algorithm Google released in 2012 that penalizes sites that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines (duplicate content, bad links, etc.).
With this new update, Penguin now refreshes data in real time.
This means if Google puts your website on their “Naughty List” for whatever reason, you no longer have to wait months for an algorithm update to be taken off of it.
Instead, you can fix the problem on the page, submit it for reconsideration, and get the penalty removed almost immediately.
Another piece of excellent news is that Penguin now treats pages on a website individually, rather than as a whole. So if Google flags one of your pages, it will no longer penalize your entire website.
Here’s the takeaway from all this Penguin talk…
With this update, Google is giving honest website owners a lot more leeway if they make a mistake. If you end up in the Google doghouse, you can get out of there MUCH more quickly now (as long as you correct the problem).
Are there things that need to be fixed on your site to avoid a “Google slap”? Let MYM perform a free Lead Generation Audit of your website and find out.
As part of the audit, our SEO nerds will perform a 21-point inspection of your website to identify what’s hurting your rankings. We’ll also provide you with the exact blueprint to fix these issues, so you can start improving your search engine rankings ASAP.
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This info-packed webinar shows you how to shut down price objections before they’re ever raised. You’ll also discover how to skyrocket your closing ratios and average sales amounts.
Here is the video if you don’t feel like clicking the link:
Want over 160 more articles, videos, and webinars that will help you attain unqualified marketing success?
Then you are in the right place. To find a specific topic, use the search bar or Topics menu on the right side of the page.
Trust me. If you’re looking for a specific contractor marketing topic, odds are it’s in here.
Happy reading!
P.S. If there is a marketing topic I haven’t covered in the MYM blog that you’d like to know more about, email me and let me know. If it’s something enough people want me to write about, I’ll be more than happy to. Promise!!!
If you regularly read these emails, you probably noticed I end many of them by telling you to take advantage of MYM’s free Lead Generation Audit.
I do this for a few reasons.
First, it’s a way of saying “thanks” for being an email subscriber. Second, I like to show potential clients we mean serious business.
I’ll explain. Our Lead Generation Audit provides a comprehensive analysis of your entire internet marketing plan. Website, SEO, PPC, copy, online reputation… the works.
If there’s a stone to unturn in your internet marketing, we unturn it. Then we put it under the MYM microscope and provide you with incredibly detailed analyses of our findings.
Here’s an example: Included in the audit is an SEO report that’s a whopping 19 pages. It covers the complete gamut of your SEO plan and provides data on things you likely have no idea are affecting your rankings. (For example, did you know Google penalizes websites that load too slowly?)
Let me show you a small sample of what’s in this tome of an SEO report:
Overall Website SEO Score
Keyword Ranking
Technical SEO Issues Summary
Mobile Page Speed Report
As you can see, there’s enough detail on these four pages to make your head spin faster than a merry-go-round pushed by The Flash on steroids.
And here’s the thing. I didn’t even show you the sections that cover Meta Title/Description Issues, Image Issues, and Desktop Page Speed. The images above are only about 15% of what’s in the report.
This is why one of our SEO experts hops on the phone with you to review every page and break down all the technical mumbo jumbo. You’ll have a crystal-clear picture of what’s going right with your SEO, what’s going wrong, and exactly what you need to do to fix your issues.
The amount of work and research required for us to generate such a detailed SEO report costs us $1,000. But we provide it to you for a sum total of $0.00—with ZERO poking, prodding, and pressure to do business with us afterward.
Why do we provide a freebie that costs us a thousand bucks a pop?
It’s simple—I despise sales pressure.
MYM is the type of marketing company that looks for enthusiastic long-term growth partners. Twisting someone’s arm until they submit to signing on the dotted line is a horrible way to start a partnership. We want your business only if YOU want our business.
So if you’re interested in having MYM helm your SEO after we provide your report, that’s great. If not, that’s okay too. Feel free to go on your merry way. The choice is yours.
The only BAD choice is not getting the audit at all. SEO is all but mandatory for effectively marketing yourself online. It’s vital for you to know how you stack up to your Google competition.
P.S. In addition to an exhaustive SEO report, our Lead Generation Audit also provides you with an Identity Discovery Session and Website Conversion Audit. You’ll walk away with a COMPLETE “State Of The Union” regarding your online marketing.
If you want the $3,500 worth of invaluable marketing insight our Lead Generation Audit provides, click here.
