Website design involves selecting colors, fonts, and many other elements, but it would all be in vain without SSL security.
All businesses have evolved digitally thanks to the large number of advances we have had in recent years and that have shaped how we buy today: social networks, web 2.0 and even e-commerce.
There are key aspects of web page design that you should consider for use on your site if you want to take your business one step further: implementing online payments and dealing with important information, such as personal or banking data. Among the most important is having an SSL certificate.
If this is new to you, here are three points you should consider when designing your website to put your business online with an e-commerce model:
Amazing and flexible user experience
It may seem impossible to launch your online store without a web development and design team. However, this is becoming more and more accessible thanks to different business solutions available to help you get started easily with little technical knowledge.
The cost is usually moderate, the technology behind these solutions is top-notch, and they are also scalable solutions that will adapt to the pace of your business growth. Some integrate seamlessly with the WordPress platform, one of the most flexible in terms of design that currently exists and with which a large number of websites are built today.
Safety first
The most important thing you should have is to ensure that your visitors oman business email list can rest assured that the purchases they make on your website are completely secure and confidential. On all e-commerce sites there is one element that can never be missing and that is an SSL certificate.
The great benefit of having this technology is simple: all the information that is sent through your website will be encrypted. If it is not, anyone, specifically a hacker, can intercept this information and make use of it.
There are different types of certificates available to encrypt the information you send, each with price ranges and requirements that will vary depending on the level of certification you require:
Direct Validation (DV) Certificate – Available to anyone who can prove ownership of a domain. This is the easiest certificate to obtain.
Organization Validation Certificate (OV) – Non-profit organizations can apply for this.
Extended Validation (EV) Certificate – Available for businesses with regular activity. You will need to prove essential business data, such as legal registration with your country’s government, phone number and address, as well as proof that the domain is owned by you.
The benefits you get with these certificates, in addition to the encryption of your data, are:
The word “https” instead of “http” in the address bar
A green padlock next to the “https”
The word secure to indicate that navigation is protected
In case of extended validation certificates, the company name within the navigation bar
A badge that you can include in your site design highlighting that it guarantees a safe purchase
All of these small details will help to provide more confidence to your customers and if you add additional protection, such as a Firewall or malware analysis and removal software, you can rest assured that the threats surrounding your business are increasingly fewer.
Performance to be always online
Let's imagine a rather peculiar case: one of your customers is making a transaction and at that moment your website crashes. The shopping experience can be ruined in an instant and probably none of it is your fault.
Even if you have everything perfectly designed and optimized in your website design, there are external factors that can impact the performance of your site. If your site is hosted on a shared hosting, it will be sharing memory and storage resources with hundreds of other sites that are there as well, which can slow down navigation and loading times in case someone consumes more than they should.
You can improve this aspect by changing your shared hosting to something like a VPS (virtual private server), a cloud server or, if your budget allows it, your own dedicated server!
The more power your hosting has, the more likely you are to ensure that your site runs as fast as possible, and the less risk you run of having an external factor take down your site and unpleasant surprises.
Whatever type of business you want to start online, make sure to keep these basic tips in mind, which you can discuss in depth with your partners, web development team, or IT team to shape your company's online strategy.
Take advantage of each of them and, with proper planning, you will be entering into a strong competition within the world of e-commerce.
