SSL 247 are authorised strategic resellers of Verisign,GlobalSign, Geotrust and RapidSSL products

Have you ever filled in a form on a website - eg: sent an inquiry, asked for information or signed up for a newsletter, and seen a warning like this:

if so, it means the web page you sent your information from was not secure. If you haven't seen this message, it might be because you have the security settings in your internet browser set to low (the default setting for the many tens of millions of copies of Internet Explorer in use today means the vast majority of all your visitors will see a message like this one if you do not have SSL).

Surely my site isn't a target for hackers?

You may be wondering who can see this information (other than the people who run the website receiving the information) and how they can see it. Well, to simplify things, the information sent doesn't just go down the phone line from the site visitor's computer to the webserver. It is sent around the internet via a network of 'routers' that can also be used to intercept and look at what is sent. Anyone with dishonest intent can easily pick out credit card numbers for fraudulent use, or even just harvest email addresses and sell them to spammers. So without being 'hacked' or even targeted specifically, a hacker can easily use the information your visitors send you.

How does SSL stop this?

A secure page (one protected by a SSL certificate) encrypts the data sent between your visitors and your web server - regardless of whether it is credit card details, their best kept secret, or their new email address that is (so far!) not on any SPAM databases. As it is encrypted (scrambled), nobody can work out what is sent except for your webserver which unscrambles it all and turns it back into what your visitor wrote in the first place.

So what are the benefits of SSL for my site?

So the greatest benefits of putting SSL on your site are:

• Ability to take sensitive information from customers/visitors - such as credit card details
• Reassuring your customers to trust you - they can easily see you take their privacy seriously
• Make a statement about the quality of your site - be taken more seriously by your visitors
• Increase response rates for newsletter registrations or sales leads etc - more people fill in forms when they are on secure pages - SSL stops the message at the top of the screen, and shows this instead:

We are sure you'll agree which of the two security messages on this page you want your visitors to see!

With internet usage rising, and security breaches now becoming high profile news items or court cases, consumers are becoming increasingly aware of privacy issues. As they become more educated, the number of people willing to submit forms that are insecure (top example) decreases. To maximize the number of sales/inquiries/sign-ups your site gets, simply invest in SSL benefit today, order your certificate from ssl247.co.uk and save £££ on SRP!

Which type of certificate is right for me and my site?

Traditionally, large businesses with online ecomerce stores have been the only people using SSL, but increasingly clued-up marketeers, site owners and webmasters are using SSL to secure signups to newsletters, site logins or inquiry forms etc - so we offer two types of certificate, one suitable for ecommerce, and another useful for smaller sites, or where budget is an issue:

Remember, all our SSL certs do the same job, just with more (or fewer!) bells and whistles. We segment certificate types by usage - like in the table above - to help suggest which is most likely to fit your requirements. There is always an exception to every rule, and some small sites use QuickSSL Premium certificates to secure email subscription forms and enhance their credibility...

If you would like our opinion on which certificate we feel is best for you, your site and you budget, just contact us and tell us what you want to achieve.