Fix the not secure warning on your website
A visitor lands on your site, sees Not secure sitting next to your name in the address bar, and quietly closes the tab. You never even knew they came.
Where it hurts
The warning looks alarming because browsers mean it to. Most of the time it isn't that your site's been hacked, it's that the security certificate is missing, expired, or set up wrong so it never quite takes effect. But your customers don't know that. They just see a scary label on the page where you're asking them to type their card.
It hurts you twice. People bounce before they buy, and Google marks insecure sites down in search, so fewer people find you to begin with.
Sometimes the certificate is even installed correctly and one stubborn setting keeps the warning showing, which is the sort of thing that's quick to fix once you know where to look and maddening if you don't.
What I'd build
I'd find out why the warning's really showing rather than just throwing a new certificate at it. Usually that means installing or renewing a proper SSL certificate (Let's Encrypt is free and fine for most sites), forcing every page onto https, and hunting down any mixed content (an image or script still loading over the old insecure address) that keeps the padlock from closing. Then I'd set the certificate to renew itself so this doesn't come back to bite you in a year.
What changes
- The padlock shows and the Not secure label is gone
- Customers trust the checkout enough to actually use it
- Your search ranking stops being penalised for being insecure
- The certificate renews on its own, so it won't lapse again
Related fixes
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