WARNING: Archival Site
This is an old website that exists for archive purposes only. Visit https://gutensite.com for our real live site, website builder and digital marketing services.
Basic SEO Best Practices Now Require SSL
November 21 2017
November 21 2017
Whether or not SEO is a major part of your marketing strategy (and it should at least be one factor), you need to comply with the basic best practices to ensure that your site is found by people searching for your product/service. This is free traffic, free advertising. Each organic search visitor is like picking up a dollar bill off the ground (or ten). The basics of SEO include:
- Write fresh, keyword-rich content that appeals to customers in every stage of their buyer's journey.
- Tag your content with the appropriate meta data (e.g. Headers, Meta Descriptions, Friendly URLS, etc.
- Promote your content and build back links.
- And now, make sure your site is secure.
(BTW, If you need help getting up to speed with SEO and other Digital Marketing best practices, schedule a free call with our consulting team to discuss your options.)
Google has been pushing website owners to convert their sites to use SSL certificates for a while (they don't want criminals or governments snooping on your online activity). They've encouraged this by awarding better SEO rankings to websites with SSL, as well as displaying scary warning signs on websites that accept data from visitors without an SSL certificate (a big no-no). They are now beginning to put this warning in more situations, which will scare away visitors from your page and lower your conversion rates.
Fortunately, this is (relatively) easy to resolve if you can follow basic instructions (below). Otherwise if you want us to manage the DNS for you with our $50/yr Premium Domain & DNS management Service (email us to request help) we can set this up for you. Since many website owners will ignore this Chrome update, this is your chance to gain an advantage over competitors. Don't miss this opportunity.
How to Activate SSL (DIY)
The simplest solution is to create a free CloudFlare account, add your domain, and then activate SSL on your domain. Cloudflare is a popular CDN (Content Delivery Network), which means that they cache your website on servers all around the world and then deliver it to your visitors more quickly. This speed will also provide an added SEO ranking boost as well.
- Create an account at cloudflare.com and add your domain to their control panel (see their instructions for details).
- Make sure your DNS record in Cloudflare, match the DNS records in your Domain Registrar account (where you bought the domain), and then point your DNS to cloudflare (see their instructions for details).
- While editing your domain, click the "Crypto" icon (at top of page) and select the SSL setting "Full".
- Send an email to our support team requesting that we redirect all non-SSL traffic to SSL (so that all traffic now goes to the secure version of your site).
- Update any links you have on social media, to be https://www.yourdomain.com (instead of http).
As of April, 2018, there is no need to use CloudFlare nor any other SSL provider. We automatically enable SSL on all of our customer's websites, and all traffic is directed to the secure version.
FYI, the new 2.0 platform we are building will include SSL (for free) on all sites by default (we hope to have a Beta out in the next 6 months). This is something we've been planning for a while, and definitely the way the industry has been headed for a while.
Archives
June 10, 2022
Common Questions about Migrating Your Website from 1.0 to 2.0
Your website on the retro 1.0 version of our platform will continue to function until at least June 2023, and after that we will keep the old platform working as long as is necessary/reasonable to ...
June 06, 2022
Upgrade Your Old Website to Prevent Lawsuits and Improve Marketing
Over the last few years, we have been working on the overly ambitious project of rebuilding our Website Builder and Content Management System based on modern coding standards, cutting edge design, ...
June 10, 2022
The New Gutensite Website is Live on Our New Platform!
Did you notice we just launched a new version of our website? Go to https://gutensite.com to see what's new. Look around and imagine how your business could be helped if we transformed your website ...
October 06, 2021
ADA Compliance and Website Accessibility Standards
In the last few months clients have had a growing paranoia about a growing number of ADA lawsuits (Americans with Disabilities Act) for website accessability. There have been reports of "serial ...
September , 2021
New IDX Widget Going Live for Everyone
As part of our ongoing efforts to improve our system and also stay up to date with the changing technology requirements of each MLS, we have created an entirely new IDX Widget that was released to ...
2022 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2021 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2020 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2019 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2018 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2017 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2016 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2015 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2014 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2013 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2012 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2011 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2010 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2009 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
2008 Archives
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
—Alexander Metcalfe
RealNews UK