Secure Your Real Estate Website Using SSL

Over the past few years there has been a considerable push on the web to get all website traffic encrypted. You may have heard of HTTPS vs. HTTP or SSL vs. non-SSL. Or maybe someone told you that your website needs to be secure. But what does all of this mean for your Real Estate website and what can you do about it? We’ll cover some of the basics to help you better understand the important details of securing your website and how to go about making it happen.

You need to have a secure website. A secure website encrypts the information being passed between your users and the website itself. This helps prevent hacking, fraud and other issues caused by “the bad people”. The web browsers themselves are pushing for websites to be encrypted. Chrome is now informing users when a website is not encrypted by labeling websites as such in an effort to encourage website owners to upgrade.

Search engines are also starting to favor websites using HTTPS in their search results and this trend will grow in the coming months.

How to Encrypt Your Real Estate Website

There are many options for getting your website on HTTPS and the first place to start is your website hosting provider. SSL certificates are installed on the server hosting your website so you’ll need to contact the host or company in charge of your website to help you get started. Sometimes your host will have free SSL encryption options available but many times you’ll need to pay for a certificate. The cost of certificates varies but the average website certificate costs between $29 – $99 per year. Each year you may need to renew and have a new certificate re-installed so be sure to ask about how renewals work when talking to your provider.

Home Junction Makes It Easy!

If you have a Real Estate website powered by Home Junction, you may already have an SSL certificate. Most new websites we sell include an SSL certificate and encryption free of charge automatically. You don’t need to do anything and when we launch your site it will be encrypted free of charge.

If you’ve been a customer for a while your website may or may not already be encrypted. If you visit your website and you see a green “Secure | https://” at the beginning of the address bar, it’s already encrypted. If not, rest assured that you’re probably on our list of websites that needs to be upgraded automatically in the coming months. There are a few older websites which cannot be upgraded to SSL due to platform limitations. If you aren’t sure if your website supports SSL and don’t see the “Secure” message in your browser’s address bar, please contact support today to ask about upgrading.