The short answer is YES... In our opinion ALL websites should use SSL (https) regardless of the websites size, purpose or whether or not it collects sensitive information.

Prior to 2017 only large corporate websites and online stores that collected Credit/Debit card details were required to use SSL to encrypt data between clients and servers and most small business websites where usually non SSL, even some small privately owned online stores where Credit/Debit card details where only collected off site via a third a party payment processor such as Paypal, Worldpay where still non SSL but that all changed in 2017 when Google decided to mark all non SSL websites as insecure in their chrome browser with other browsers following suit.

This move by Google was done to stop people entering Credit/Debit card details on fake, bogus non SSL websites, the customer sees the Not Secure warning and thinks twice about entering card details but like everything, this was abused.

How Could the Not Secure Warning be Abused?

This warning was added to browsers to stop people entering Credit/Debit card details on fake or unsafe websites, The Not Secure message was just meant to give the customers information about the security status of the website, whether it was SSL or not.

Small business websites that didn't collect sensitive information such as Credit/Debit card details still did not need to be secure and could continue operating as is but what happened is rogue marketing companies started to target small businesses to terrify them into moving over to their expensive hosting and SSL packages with sales pitches like "Your website is dangerous", " You are scheduled to be dropped from Google because your website is dangerous", " You are going to lose all your customers because your website has been marked as Not Secure by Google" and so on.

Unfortunately many non technical people fell for it hook line and sinker, I mean they could see the Not Secure warning on their website and didn't want to be dropped by Google

A big player in this Insecure Website scam was the now infamous Yell, a once respected company that created the now defunct Yellow Pages.  

In recent years Yell has moved online and started to supply online listings, marketing and website design, unfortunately their once high standards took a nosedive when they entered an industry they had no experience in and rather than learn the industry  and employ the correct people to run this new venture they instead moved into telesales using commission based salesmen armed with their once respected name and unbelievable leads data to convince clients that using Yell would increase sales and business resulting in a number of Court cases in recent years against Yell for miss-selling.

This Not Secure Warning was a gift to these commission based salesmen who used it throughout 2017-2018 to trick customers into moving all their services over to them and even up-selling their questionable marketing services.

We are not sure if Yell salesmen are still using this trick in 2020 as a number of Web Design Agencies and Web Hosting Companies called them out on social media forcing them to make a statement stating that they just wanted to highlight the benefits of SSL and will retrained their salesmen if needed.

If We Are Recommending SSL for ALL Sites Then Aren't Yell and Others Correct?

Yell and other unscrupulous salesmen are definitely NOT correct, we have been in the web design and marketing industry for over 20 years and small business website do NOT required SSL, we even have a number of Non SSL websites ranking at the top of page one dispelling the myth that Google will drop you if you are not secure.

However there are a number of reasons why we now recommend SSL for all websites

• Yell and other devious salesmen have done a lot of damage over the years and most website owners and customers know someone who has heard and will repeat these lies making business owners and customers uncertain.
  
  
• Whilst people in the web design and internet marketing industry understand the meaning of the Not Secure warning now being used on all browsers the average person doesn't and may interpret this message to mean that it's dangerous to be on this particular website.
  
  
• SSL prices have come down a considerable amount in the last couple of years; we believe this price drop was triggered by the 'Not Secure' message and the unfounded rumours surrounding it.
  
  

Prior to 2017 you paid SSL on the top of web hosting with average prices being £40-£60 PA for web hosting and £80-£90+ for your SSL giving companies an annual hosting bill of £150+ which is quite expensive for a small business.

With recent price drops many web hosting companies will offer Hosting and SSL combined for £50-£70PA meaning that rather than debating whether SSL is needed or not you just use it.

For our own clients SSL Web Hosting is Just £49PA.... Our standard Hosting was £39PA so most companies are switching anyway.