In case you did not know, starting Feb 1 2017, Firefox and Chrome browsers are listing websites loading from HTTP (vs HTTPS) as “Not Secure”. To see if your store is affected, click on the (!) icon, which is left of the URL and you will see the message below:
Thousands of eCommerce owners previously ignored the warnings that Firefox and Chrome would implement such form of security and if visitors to your site see such warnings, it may negatively affect your conversion rate and sales. Which can be pretty disastrous for business.
Below are 3 ways to fix it:
1) Remove the login form (username and password fields) from all unsecured pages in your store or replace that form with a link to a secure login page.
This will require the minimum changes to the templates but will not prevent browsers from showing a warning sign beside your URL. Not as scary as “Logins entered on this page could be compromised” but still not ideal. It will still say “Connection is not secure”.
2) Switch your store to run everything from HTTPS.
This will require a bit more changes to the store and maybe to the templates, descriptions and static pages to adjust the store configuration and path of loading media, test all the pages so everything is loading from secure (HTTPS) URLs. After this, the browsers will show a green icon with “Secure” text or your company name (depending on the type of SSL certificate you are using):
This is better, but, if your server does not support HTTP/2 connection, the store will run slower on HTTPS compare to HTTP and nobody likes slow stores which take us to the 3rd option.
3) Switch your store to run everything from HTTPS and upgrade to a server with HTTP/2 support.
This is the best solution because your store will be fast and secure so your customers will be happy and search engines will rank you higher than your competitors.
If you were busy running your business and did not follow the latest developments in the Internet networking, here is a short introduction: HTTP/2 is a major revision of the HTTP network protocol used by the World Wide Web (aka WWW). Most major browsers already added HTTP/2 support by the end of 2015 so the majority of your customers will enjoy the benefits.
According to W3Techs, as of December 2016, only 10.8% of the top 10 million websites supported HTTP/2 so you can get ahead of your competition by implementing that technology for your store. The major advantage of HTTP/2 is improved page load speed, especially improved page load speed over secure HTTPS connections. Below are the speed test results of one of our clients we recently switched to HTTPS on a server with HTTP/2 support:
As you can see, we cut the full page loading speed in half from 12 seconds to 6 seconds without any changes to the store’s code. Plus, in the second test, store is running everything from secure HTTPS which would be 30% slower without HTTP/2
If you want a competitive advantage right now without any major investments, consider switching your store to run securely on a server with HTTP/2 support. Talk to your hosting company or if you need help, send us a note at www.finestshops.com regarding this upgrade.
