Get HTTPS Secure
Improve the security of your website to avoid 'not secure' warnings and protect patients.
Secure your URL and protect patients
HTTPS adds a layer of protection to prevent tampering between your website and your patients' web browsers.
This is essential when patients are sharing information via your website by submitting a form or signing up to an email newsletter.
Google wants every website to be secure and have introduced measures that force website owners to improve security by displaying 'Not Secure' messages next to URLs that don't have HTTPs.
Secure your site with HTTPS
- Our web development team will source and install your SSL certificate and redirect pages on your website from http to https.
Securing your site with https
You may have noticed a padlock symbol in the address bar of your internet browser when you visit a website. This indicates that a website has a correctly installed SSL Certificate.
An SSL certificate provides a layer of protection between your website and your visitors’ browsers to prevent tampering. This is of particular importance as without this layer of security your patients’ data can be compromised. Secure websites start with https instead of http.
SSL is recommended for every website on the internet. In fact if you don’t have it, your website visitors will see a warning that your site is not safe. This means if you are not using SSL on your website, you will lose the trust of your patients.
Many hosting companies offer free SSL certificates. The first step is to activate the certificate which is easy enough to do. The second step is where many practice owners get stuck and that is updating their URL’s from http to https. It’s best to trust this step with an experienced web developer and that’s where we can help.
HTTPS - The Basics
SSL Certificate
To secure your website, you need a SSL certificate. These are usually free and are sourced from your website host or CDN.
Making the Switch
Once your SSL Certificate is installed, you need to update all of the URLs on your website to be https instead of http.
Not Secure is a turn off
Without HTTPS security on your website, you risk your patient data being compromised and patients being warned your site is not secure.
FAQ:
HTTPS is one of two elements that can appear in front of your clinic's URL in the Google search bar. The other element is HTTP.
For example:
a) https://yourclinic.com.au
b) http://yourclinic.com.au
When you have https at the beginning of your URL, this indicates your website is secure and sensitive information is protected by encryption. Therefore it cannot be read by third parties if intercepted.
Many web hosts provide SSL certificates for free. Cloudflare SSL and Let's Encrypt are free, well documented and don't require regular maintenance.
Without HTTPS on your website, you risk:
- Patient data being compromised
- Patients being warned your website is not secure, which reduces trust
- Your Google ranking dropping below your competitors
Potentially!
First step is to source your SSL certificate, usually via your website host. Then you need to ensure a redirect is set up from the http version of your website to https. You can look up how to do this yourself on Google or YouTube, engage a freelance web developer on a site like Upwork or choose our service.