The Importance of a Secure eCommerce Website

Starting an eCommerce business is equal parts exciting and nerve-racking. Of course, you’ll want to invest in a website, but many business owners overlook their eCommerce website’s security.

In reality, website eCommerce security is one of the most important factors of running a successful business.

Why Is Website Security Important?

Without a secure eCommerce platform, you’re putting both your brand and your customers at risk of suffering from fraud, identity theft, or other similar situations. Not only will this create financial problems for your business, but it will likely result in a dent in your brand’s reputation.

Here are some essential steps to consider to ensure your small business’ website is secure.

Step 1: Choose a Secure eCommerce Platform

Ensure that your site has an SSL certificate or a digital certificate that encrypts any information sent between the web server and the web browser. This is a simple and effective way to protect any customer data, and the certificate can help customers feel confident making a monetary transaction on your site.

Step 2: Use HTTPS

HTTPS, or hypertext transfer protocol secure, is the main way to send data from a web browser to a website. Using HTTPS is especially important when customers submit sensitive data such as their credit card. Google Chrome sites that don’t use HTTPS are marked differently, which could tip off your customers that your site isn’t secure.

Step 3: Protect Your Customers’ Data

Data privacy is becoming an increasingly important part of any eCommerce website. Do your part to protect your consumers’ data by only gathering the necessary information, and don’t store that data on online servers.

Step 4: Insist on Customers Using Strong Passwords

The weakest link of your eCommerce website security may be your customers. Weak or repeated passwords have a higher chance of being breached by bots or hackers. Require customers to use a complex password that features upper and lowercase letters mixed with numbers or symbols. For an extra layer of protection, turn on two-factor authentication.

Step 5: Use WAF to Avoid Hacking

A web application firewall, or WAF, is an application firewall that works to filter and monitor HTTP website traffic. WAF helps to prevent the exploitation of potential weak spots in your website, such as the wrong system configuration, file inclusion, SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and more.

Conclusion

Your eCommerce website is an opportunity to make a lasting impact on your customers. Ensuring that your site is functional and secure can be difficult to handle on your own. For personalized assistance with your eCommerce site, turn to Catapult Revenue.

We offer robust web development and digital marketing strategies to help grow your business and achieve unmatched results. Whatever challenges your business is facing, we’ll work with you to overcome them. To top it off, according to DesignRush.com, we have been recently ranked among the Top-35 Web Design Companies.

We’d love to hear more about the ins and outs of your eCommerce site. Get in touch with us today, and take advantage of our complimentary digital marketing assessment.