Warning: This New Google Update Could Hurt Leads and Sales

In a few months, you could end up seeing a huge decrease in traffic if you don't have this one thing.

I'm talking about one little “s.”

The question you need to ask yourself is, does your website's URL start with “http,” not “https”?

If so, that little “s” is a lot more important than you might think. .

On July 18th, Google's Chrome browser will start showing users a prominent, rather intimidating warning when they navigate to a site that isn't “https”.

As SSL certificates have increasingly become the norm, websites without them are considered to be potentially insecure.

Recently, this has had the biggest impact on ecommerce sites, since online stores are a place where people share sensitive information like credit card numbers.

But even if you don't take payments on your site, you need to go ahead and get your SSL certificate as soon as you can.

Otherwise, Chrome users are going to be prompted to “go back to safety” when they try to visit your site.

This matters a lot, considering that Chrome is one of the world's leading browsers.

Google has announced a deadline of July 2018 as the date for when Chrome will begin explicitly warning users if a site is insecure. Over 50% of Internet browsers worldwide are Chrome, meaning this change may have a significant impact on web publishers. A prominent warning may affect how secure users feel and may cause some visitors to leave a site, which will negatively impacting a sites bounce rate, advertising impressions, affiliate clicks and eCommerce sales.

Google’s announcement was firm about their goal to warn users of insecure sites, with the intent of further shepherding more web publishers into upgrading to HTTPS.

Google’s Lighthouse Developer Recommendations page recommends Let’s Encrypt as a low cost alternative for those who run their own servers. Most web hosting providers already provide free HTTPS certificates as well as low cost certificates. The monetary cost for upgrading should no longer be an excuse for waiting.

All web publishers should at least consider upgrading to HTTPS. This is no longer a consideration limited to eCommerce sites. The warnings may cause site visitors to begin negatively reacting to warnings on sites that have not upgraded, which may affect advertising impressions, lead generation, sales and so on. July 2018 is the deadline for when prominent warnings will begin to show to Chrome users. The clock is ticking.