Busted! You're online and you don't have...?

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MAY 2013

Greetings!

Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Our military fight hard to protect our freedom here in the U.S. As most of us have just come out of enjoying Memorial Day weekend with friends and family, we at Virtually With You want to extend our heartfelt appreciation for those who serve so faithfully and we also extend our prayers to the families of those who have lost loved ones to war or military-related events.

Every person I know wants and desires the freedom to live securely and to be protected from the enemy. In fact, we have come to expect it.

Our article this month is about a different kind of protection ... it is about protection from cyber-hacking and protecting our customers from identify theft. This article idea came to me when a customer of one of my clients asked if her site was secure. I knew that it was but, after looking at her checkout page more closely, I could understand why she worried about it. I researched what it would take to display the verification seal on her site and found out about the SSL Certificate. GoDaddy was offering an insane deal for their SSL Certificates (much like the one in our Cool Tools section). When I spoke with the tech guy at GoDaddy, he said that if my client's site was ever audited by her merchant provider and they found out she did not have an SSL Certificate, they could shut down her site immediately. Needless to say, we bought one quickly!

That's why we wanted to share this really important information with you about how you can protect your customers and, at the same time, increase your sales. Be sure to catch this insane offer from GoDaddy on SSL Certificates.

Move fast though... Their offer expires May 30th!

Karen Croll

Head Chica of the Virtually With You Excellence Team

Busted! You're online and you don't have an SSL certificate?
by Patty Benton

You've got your website up and running. You've got your products and services all priced out and lined up for sale. You've set up your merchant account to process online payments. You're ready to start selling, right? Wrong. And this can be a costly mistake for online merchants and small business owners. The key to establishing a successful online business is building customer trust.

It's imperative that you use an industry-standard protocol for the protection of all online transactions with your clients or customers. This helps your customers feel more secure about sending their private data to you and it protects you. Private data is anything that should be kept between your customer and you, the site owner. Most notably, credit card information, but anything that could be considered personal to your customers should be respected. And protected.

SSL Certificates are the industry-standard for online security.

What is an SSL Certificate?

First, SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It's the industry-standard security technology that's used to establish an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. SSL enables the data that's passed between the web server and the browsers to remain private and secure - safe from the problems of eavesdropping, data tampering, or message forgery. When a website purchases an SSL certificate, you'll see the "padlock" icon at the bottom of your browser window and the URL changing from an http:// to an https:// in your browser bar when you visit that site. This shows that your information is "locked down" and secure when you enter it into that site's shopping cart or webforms.

With web-savviness on the rise in consumers, it's important that people feel secure about entering their data on your site. Otherwise, they may leave without making a purchase or signing up for your informational products.

In addition to giving your site credibility, what does an SSL Certificate protect?

Installing an SSL Certificate on your domain protects your customers' information from cyber thieves and hackers. All data entered on your site will be safe if you have a valid SSL - names, addresses, passwords, account information, banking information, invoicing information and credit card numbers included. Your customers want to know that (1) you value their online security and (2) you are serious about protecting their information that they're entrusting to you and your site.

So, in summary, how do you know you need an SSL certificate?

If your site is just pictures of your dog and there's no login, no sign-up forms and no selling on it, you're good. If you have any sort of sign-up form where people are entering in their information, it's a good idea. If you're selling, it's a necessity.

An SSL certification for your website is the single easiest and most effective way to ensure that your customers' confidential information is staying confidential until it reaches where it needs to go. This process ensures that both you and your customers are comfortable with the transactions from your site. And, let's face it, a happy customer is a repeat customer.

Lock. It. Up.

Cool Tool - GoDaddy's SSL Certs