Author page: Xienan Shaw

The right type of body language can help get you into that room.

Confident body language is a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts: The more you project success, competence and resources, the more those things will likely be awarded to you. As far as the body language you want to present, making it a habit is vital. Just as important is spending time in the same vicinity as the people with the power to help you reach your goals — and projecting confidence to them, said Mark Bowden, author of Winning Body Language and other books on the subject. Being in the right place at the right time with the right people is the best way to use your body language to supercharge your goals.

Whether you’ve got your eyes set on a raise, partnership, promotion or any other new business opportunity, here are five body language tips to help get you there.

Take advantage of your full height 

Four or five inches in height — in other words, the difference between the 25th percentile and the 75th — could translate to a salary increase of 9 to 15 percent, according to research published in 2015. Though you can’t grow taller by sheer force of will, you can make use of every inch you’ve got by standing (and sitting) tall.

“Power, status and confidence are nonverbally displayed through the use of height and space,” said Carol Kinsey Goman, creator of the LinkedIn Learning course “Body Language for Leaders.”

Don’t be afraid to take up space

If you’re looking to add a few more notches to your perceived height, make a habit of taking up more space: Stand up and move around when presenting in a meeting, hook your elbow on the back of your chair while seated or spread out your belongings on the conference table, Goman said.

Another strategy: Sit a handspan from the table in meetings and negotiations, Bowden said. You’ll appear taller because others in the room will be able to see more of you, and when you reach out to take something from the table, such as a notepad or glass of water, your arm will stretch out further — resulting in the perception that you’re taking up more space. For better or worse, our built-in instincts tell us that big is more powerful than small, Bowden said. People tend to award higher salaries, honor and resources to those they perceive as more powerful.

Don’t discount the power of a smile and eye contact

Want to be memorable? Break out a toothy grin. Research published in 2015 suggests that “socially positive signals conveyed by smiling faces” may prompt people’s memory of both the person they met and the meeting’s context — especially if they perceived both of those factors as positive. Smiling at someone also often triggers them to return the gesture — and that muscle movement, in turn, can positively impact their emotional state.

And it may be one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it’s oft-repeated for a reason: Eye contact projects confidence. Aim to maintain eye contact for 50 to 60 percent of the time you speak with someone, Goman said. Here’s a strategy to help you build the habit: When starting a conversation, look into the other person’s eyes for long enough to note their color.

Talk with your hands

People perceive quality leaders to be calm and assertive, and there’s a type of body language that denotes those qualities: open-handed gestures at navel height. This movement inherently suggests that you’re honest with nothing to hide, and it also projects trust, credibility, confidence and calm, Bowden said — all before you’ve even opened your mouth to speak.

An oft-cited piece of research published in 2007 focuses in on Broca’s area, an area of the brain associated with speech production, and suggests that making hand gestures while speaking can play an important cognitive role for both a speaker and a listener. For the former, it can aid in “semantic retrieval and selection,” or choosing which words to use and why. Goman, an executive coach, said that when her clients incorporated gestures into their speeches, their speech content improved and their use of “filler words” decreased.

Identify your common nervous gestures, then work to break those habits

Whether it’s twirling your hair, wagging your foot, rolling your neck or fidgeting with your hands, you likely have a go-to nervous tic (and if you’re unsure what it is, your peers can likely point you in the right direction). Repetitive anxious behavior often takes away from the image you’re trying to portray: a calm, cool and collected leader.

To reset your body language and project confidence, take a deep breath and practice being still, Goman said. There’s a good chance that practicing meditation can help that feel more natural, and there are a host of apps out there for beginners who want to dip a toe in the water.

In my experience, strategic partnerships are the best shortcut to the kind of explosive growth a new business needs, to get going. Case in point: When our startup, CrayPay, aligned with key influencers in vertical markets, we gained 15,000 new users for our app in only four days.

Of course it’s important never to chase a strategic partnership if the end goal is only about money. That kind of thinking gives one partner an upper hand that can limit mutual opportunity in the long run.

Instead, focus on maintaining authenticity and finding the right fit. Steve Case, founding CEO of AOL, pointed to a culture clash as the biggest reason for the historic failure of his company’s partnership with Time Warner. AOL’s aggressive style was in constant conflict with Time Warner’s more conservative, corporate outlook, multiple observers pointed out. 

So, if your potential partner asks for terms that don’t align with the company’s values, brand or products, walk away.

Strategic partnerships, in short, can galvanize a startup’s growth. Starbucks’s recent partnerships with Uber Eats and Alibaba demonstrate how companies with different capabilities can extend the reach of their respective brands by teaming up. In Starbucks’s case, these partnerships are helping the coffee behemoth grow its delivery capabilities and expand its market dominance even further.

Teaming up with Alibaba, meanwhile, was a particularly strategic move — one that may well transform the coffee market in China.

Just as Starbucks did, associating your own company with a partner-brand can increase your reach and enhance your business’s reputation. As it happens, these can also be potential drawbacks to strategic partnerships.

The reason is that partnerships are more concerned with mutual opportunity — access to market share or intellectual property rights — than they are with hard numbers. Even if they don’t make sense on paper, strategic partnerships are forged because each partner sees a potential win in the relationship for its individual business.

Partnership wins and warnings

Mutually beneficial partnerships often grow out of supplier and distributor relationships. These types of vertical alliances exchange experience and relationships for involvement in product design or exclusive, discounted distribution arrangements.

Vertical partnerships are your best bet, because teaming up with a horizontal competitor is asking for conflict. Aligning with key influencers in vertical industries gave my company enormous access to a qualified audience of potential new customers. As a result, we saw the explosive growth that quickly increased sales and made us more attractive to future partners.

Establishing a productive partnership that takes on some of the workload can give startups much-needed flexibility to explore additional growth without the opportunity costs that come with being a smaller operation. Below are the lessons I learned about how to make a strategic partnership work before, during and after its initiation:

1. Imagine the past obvious
To succeed, a partnership must be grounded in strategy and enlivened with imagination. In other words, don’t limit the scope to obvious partners. Some of the most successful partnerships start outside the box.

For example, the partnership between BMW and designer Louis Vuitton isn’t an obvious choice. However, ultimately it was a match because the companies target similar upscale clients. BMW’s contribution to the partnership was its i8 sports car, and Louis Vuitton’s was that it not only created a four-piece luggage set that matched the car’s style, but its luggage design fit in the car’s trunk. Each component added further exclusivity to the other luxury brand.

2. Get beyond ”CEO to CEO”
It’s never a good idea to announce a partnership negotiated between leaders and expect the two teams to seamlessly integrate to execute the vision. Strategic partnerships may begin and end with each company’s senior leaders, but engaging the entire team is vital for success.

To that end, bring members of your team along throughout the negotiations as much as possible. Getting to know the different players and defining their roles not only expedites the launch, but builds trusting relationships that are essential for optimizing the partnership.

3. Stay true to the product and team
Never chase a strategic partnership if its value is only about money. That gives one partner an upper hand that can limit mutual opportunity in the long run. Instead, focus on maintaining authenticity and finding the right fit. If a partner asks for terms that don’t align with the company’s values, brand or products, walk away.

To ensure a win-win, spend time defining the value each partner brings to the alliance and structure the agreement accordingly. Establish a governance process to manage, develop and assess the relationship. Too often, strategic partnerships struggle to get off the ground after the initial fanfare. Treat the partnership like a customer relationship, monitoring partner satisfaction and adjusting processes according to the insights.

4. Scout ahead for weaknesses 
The rapid growth that came from my company’s early partnerships was a real-time stress test of both technology and product. In our case, the growth exposed a few holes.

Ultimately, the fixes were simple, but the oversights were an embarrassing hitch to our first major strategic partnership, causing dings to customer satisfaction and reputation. To avoid this, I recommend scrutinizing exactly what a strategic partner will plug into the business.

After that, triple-check every bit of code and the user experience across multiple variances to avoid messy cleanup and relationship repairs after a launch.

Another piece of advice is not to be judgmental in the extreme: Strategic partners tend to judge the relationship as a “100 percent success” or “100 percent failure.” Unfortunately, that leaves no middle ground, which can be a frustrating experience for a startup still working through its product development.

And, speaking of product development, if a strategic new partnership — and the growth it brings — exposes major weaknesses in the partnership’s product, that can be a major setback in a company’s development.

Certainly, a startup can recover from a setback like this. But a partnership has more on the line: It has to carefully evaluate its product or service’s readiness for exposure to a major audience.

5. Avoid the blame game
As they say, success has many partners, but failure is an orphan. If a strategic partnership doesn’t go as planned, it’s usually not the end of the world. Resist the urge to respond emotionally. Avoid finger-pointing or creating false narratives to save face. Instead, focus on the bigger picture by remembering that every relationship builds on another. The lessons from an undesirable outcome pave the way for better and stronger strategic partnerships down the road.

The ultimate key to successful strategic partnerships is imagination. If you are open to new ideas and creative avenues, a partnership can have tremendous value for both companies. If you think bigger and take each opportunity to figure out the value you bring to a partner, you’ll grow your company and enrich your work.

Unsurprisingly, it’s a popular feature – 71% of accountants tell us that bank feeds and reconciliation are their most loved features in Xero.

Because of their importance and the benefits they provide, we are constantly looking at ways to remove friction that our customers face. Today, a good proportion of our direct bank feeds globally require customers to connect them using paper application forms, which can mean a 10 day wait for transactions to start flowing into Xero. Our customers told us this process was too manual and time consuming, and we agreed.

We’re excited to announce a new and improved process to connect bank feeds that require paper application forms. We’ve created an easier, faster and more secure process, and by automating many of the manual steps in the process, we’re giving our customers more time to do beautiful business

A simpler process 

Say goodbye to manually filling in application forms. Now, to connect a
new bank feed you can download a pre-populated application form in Xero with
information about your organisation and bank account details. Simply sign and
date the form, scan and upload it back into Xero and we’ll take care of the
rest.

“We are really happy to be able to provide a better experience for the
200,000 customers who will connect direct bank feeds over the next year. We
know how important bank feeds are for small business owners and their advisors
to reconcile the books and see how the business is going, so this new simpler
process is really going to make a difference to them so they can get on with
running their business,” said Dimitri Stylianidis, Head of Data Integration – Financial
Services at Xero.

Uploading the form is easy – just follow the steps after downloading the
form and select ‘upload form’. If you need to upload the form at a later time,
select ‘Get bank feeds’ from the Xero dashboard, then select ‘I’ve got a form’
and upload your form.

You’ll then get an instant response to confirm whether you’ve completed
your application correctly or whether any key details are missing, and we’ll
keep you informed on the progress of your application.

Its faster and secure

A faster application process means bank feeds can be connected to Xero
sooner.

“Automating steps in the process, such as manually checking application
forms, means we’ve reduced inevitable delays so one of the biggest benefits the
new process delivers for customers is the speed to activate bank feeds.
Customers will be able to connect bank feeds faster to Xero,” said Stylianidis.

The faster bank feeds are connected, the sooner you can reconcile your
banking and get an up to date view of your cash position so you know how your
business is performing.

And you can rest assured that the process is safe and secure. Uploading
the application form into Xero is a more secure way to share information,
particularly sensitive information like your bank account details.

When will this be available?

The
new process is now available to all our Xero users. We’re excited about making
life easier for you and can’t wait for you to enjoy the benefits of this
improved process

Creating an idea- friendly environment 

Judging from the lively discussion and requests for slides after the talk, the content resonated with many and gave the audience confidence to take the next step in offering deeper client services. Here are the main takeaways from my presentation:

Advisory is human at heart

Regardless of the many different interpretations of ‘advisory’, the key foundation is the existence of a human connection between advisor and client.

True advisory is about more than simply printing and emailing a monthly report pack. While technology is an invaluable tool and enabler in delivering effective advisory services, it’s not the answer alone. Instead, advisory lives in human communication, the interpretation of data, translating jargon into relatable language (back when I was an accountant, one confused client thought I spoke fluent Klingon!) and genuinely having your client’s best interests at heart.

The common traits of Xero partners with exceptional advisory services

If you want to offer more advisory services, but are unsure of where to start – you’re not alone. The good news is, there are plenty of lessons to be learnt from those who are further along in their journey.

From my conversations and interactions with Xero’s most progressive and top-performing partners, the common denominators in successfully implementing advisory services are:

• Be curious: The only way you’ll be able to understand your client’s problems and circumstances (and whether you’re positioned to help) is by asking questions.
• Don’t do it for free: This often requires a mindset change, with many advisors now using a value-based pricing model that includes both advisory and compliance services.
  
  
• Let tech do the heavy lifting: By automating admin tasks, you can create extra time for yourself and minimise any distractions from client-facing work. Scalable and repeatable processes are key here.
  
  
• Start with the end goal in mind: The first thing successful advisors do is gain an understanding of their client’s business and personal goals. Without this knowledge, any advice you give risks being provided out of context.

Starting ‘light-touch’ and building from there

Another tip is to leverage the technology you already have at your disposal as a means to generate further conversation with your clients.

This is explored in the Xero accountant and bookkeeper guide ‘Introducing light-touch accounting advisory services’. The aim of the game isn’t to make a list of all possible services and try to offer them to your clients. Rather, it is to build confidence by focusing only on the services that you’re comfortable delivering and will have the largest positive impact for your client base.

Exploring the new advisory opportunities technology has created

Technology doesn’t simply automate reporting and forecasting. In today’s connected environment, there are countless new digital opportunities that can help your clients get ahead.

To better understand this, I encouraged the audience to explore Xero’s Cash flow app advisory playbook. Not only is it packed with actionable insights and tips, but it compares popular apps in the Xero ecosystem that solve cash flow problems. One example is using online payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe or GoCardless to reduce (or even eliminate) debtor days and improve overall cash flow. With Xero’s Small Business Insights revealing that it took 36.29 days on average for Australian small-business invoices with 30-day terms to be paid in January 2019, this is a huge opportunity for bookkeepers who are so close to the transactional data.

There are certainly elements of providing deeper client services that technology does faster and better than humans. But when it comes to situations like navigating tax legislation, adding context to KPIs per client circumstances and helping businesses become cash flow positive – technology alone is ineffective without the human touch.

If you’re looking for further advice on how to move down the advisory path, check out Xero’s The Pacesetters: Advisory guide to discover how accountants and bookkeepers around the world are using cloud-based accounting to expand their advisory offerings – helping to build stronger relationships with clients and transforming their day-to-day operations in the process.

Make a mission and vision for your team. Use your values to drive your team’s experience. Let your team understand the big picture and how they are contributing specifically. It’s a great way for providing direction and building relationships with your team.

You must be able to spot talents in other people. Make sure your crew is diverse and offers many qualities. This also applies to contacting and hiring people for your small jobs.

Always make moral choices as a leader. Ensure your decisions coincide with your convictions. If you are uncomfortable with something, forget about pursuing it. Even though some people might not have similar moral beliefs as you, you must do what is right in your heart.

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TIP: 

Being decisive can better your leadership skills. Because you are the designated leader, logs of decisions will be up to you.

Think diversity when hiring your team. Diversity in your team can give you wider perspectives.

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Let others know about possible problems. In the past, it was common to keep problems under wraps, but modern leaders know not to do this. Are you wondering why? There’s a lot of ways the issues can surface because of all the communication built into our modern lives. No one can hide a problem forever, eventually it will be exposed. So be the person that controls the message. Don’t be the one reacting to it. Successful leaders have excellent communication skills.

A great leadership quality to have is determination. When issues arise, the team will look to you for direction. You must be able to optimistically seek team goals despite all obstacles. Your persistence is going to motivate everyone else to get back to work and be hopeful.

Always remain approachable. Many people believe that striking fear in peoples’ hearts and intimidating them is the best way for you to show them you are in charge. That is not the right path, and you will be loathe to find success that way. Let your subordinates know that you are there for them if they need anything since it is your job to make sure they do well.

Prepare for group meetings. You want to have thought of questions they might have. Think of answers for the questions. It’s this kind of preparation that builds respect. It also will save you significant amounts of time.

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TIP: 

Be upfront about potential issues. It was common to hide any issues before, but great leaders don’t do that any more.

While it’s important to set goals for the people that work for you, be sure that you’re not setting impossible goals. An impossible goal is asking for failure.

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Stand by what you say. To be a good leader, you need to put your money where your mouth is. Your words and actions reflect on your company and your team. If you have done inappropriate things, it’s your job to make things right. You cannot expect other workers to fix these problems for you.

Trust what your instincts tell you. Good instincts are part of being a great leader, so make sure not to discount them. You are going to find yourself making some mistakes. Accept this fact, learn from each mistake, and move on. Going forward, avoid making the same mistake again.

Figuring out what weaknesses and strengths your team has is something you must do if you want to be a good leader. Understanding your team’s differences and diversity is key to leading them to success. It is important to be familiar with the temperaments and personalities of your group members. It is a great way to build trust and a good work relationship.

If employee reviews are part of your annual reports, remember that it’s important to review both the positives and the negatives. Compliment you team members’ good qualities to inspire greatness.

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TIP:

Don’t forsake your morals in the name of competition. When the competition engages in questionable practices, look for other ways to compete with them.

You must own mistakes you make. Nobody is perfect.

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You should make sure your team feels safe and comfortable. Safety and comfort should be your top priority because without these two things motivation can wither. Things as simple as providing snacks, drink or extra breaks can make the world of a difference to your employees.

If you have certain behaviors that you want from your team members, exhibit these behaviors yourself, first. If you are volatile and unreliable, they will also be. If you lie a lot or are lazy, the rest of the team will be just as bad. If you demonstrate respect and trust for your employees, they will return respect and trust to you.

There is a common question that most good business leaders ask. Do you feel like you’re comfortable? If you’re comfortable, then you’re probably playing it too safe. The best leaders take risks. You can avoid losing your passion and becoming pessimistic by taking calculated risks.

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TIP: 
Don’t become obsessive with winning. In this day and age it’s simple to start breaking down everything into goals and spreadsheets.

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Great leaders do more than just offer criticism to their employees; they also offer praise when appropriate. Think of five positives about an employee for each negative aspect. This helps boost morale and makes communication about the negatives easier. Using this method will make your team positive.

Work on always projecting positivity. This is easier said than done during difficult times, but good leaders know how to do it. Your attitude will trickle down to those beneath you, and you can keep morale high when you help them realize that good times are coming.

Don’t make mistakes that will set you back. When you make a mistake, let it motivate you by its lesson. Now is the time to make use of what you have learned. A great leader has confidence in his or her abilities, and can offer plenty of help to the team.

If you are looking for a way to make your site better and you have left out the concept of SEO, then it’s almost like you haven’t done anything.

With Google’s update of its terms of search engine optimisation (SEO); Mobile friendliness and Content quality, it is essential that the attention of every webmaster gets directed to the concept as Google’s updates from time to time are only a reminder/confirmation that it is an essential concept.

The marketplace today is so competitive. This makes SEO very important to how successful business would be.
The basis of SEO is the fact that users search for answers to questions every day, every hour, every minute and every single second.

Still wondering why SEO is important?

Here are some reasons why SEO is crucial for your business:

– SEO puts you on the top of your field. Amongst your competitors, if your website is optimised, it would definitely bring in more sales.

– To ensure a big website runs smoothly (especially if it is a big one), SEO would help ensure increased traffic to the website. It would also allow for a common framework for the structuring and publishing of websites, as big websites tend to have more than one author.

– The fact that SEO requires mobile friendliness (Thanks to Google’s update) will allow users to enjoy better experiences while using the website, as the usability will be improved and the website will be more attractive on the overall.

– SEO will help to ensure you garner more followers for your social media page. Since they can look you up on Google and find you, then, they can easily follow you on social media from the information they get from Google. However, for a website with poor search engine optimisation, they would lose many followers; especially those that typically go to Google to find their social media pages.

– Users put their trust in search engines. Left to users, whatever Google puts up as the answer to a question is correct. Therefore, if your website keeps coming up with correct answers, then, users will trust you as a proven source for the right information.

– The good practices involved in ensuring search engines optimise your website provide that users benefit from your website indeed. This includes exercises like avoiding plagiarism, presenting the right information, as well as the use of internal and external links to reference your data. This would ensure that your website is optimised, not only for obeying the requirements for search engine optimisation but for the fact that your website is of good quality.

In conclusion

Although SEO involves a whole lot of complex algorithms, when a website achieves it, it is usually worth the efforts. It is a highly rewarding concept that should be embraced by every brand or company.

Customer satisfaction equates to ensuring whatever your business offers make your client very happy. Wondering what to do to make your business better? Make customer satisfaction the centre of your business, and you can never go wrong. 

So, if you are reading the article, you can rest assured that you are about to know what is necessary to take your business to the next level. 

5 ways to gain customer satisfaction


• Open up your listening ears
Many brands do not particularly like to hear what they are doing wrong. Instead, they see as something, and this mindset allows them to keep seeing feedbacks as a curse rather than the blessing it is. Feedbacks are a chance to get better at what you do. The fact that the customers are letting you see things through their eyes is a chance at making your company/brand better in every way. 

• Respond to their needs promptly
It is not just okay to listen. What are you doing to sort out those issues and how fast are you making the solutions available? This is quite crucial in business, especially several industries where timing is so important. When there’s a problem at hand, no one enjoys waiting for so long to get solutions. Since the aim is to keep customers happy, even if you have to employ new staff to make that happen, make it work! Always make your response time real quick. 

• Add a touch of personalisation
Don’t just go by a particular format for things to be done. Make sure your services and everything that concerns your business has a bit of customisation, as this is the only way customers can have a sense of belonging to your business. In addition to this, the use of machines is great, but when devices are always at work, and there’s no human expression involved in your business at all, customers begin to lose touch with your company. 

• Invest in the happiness of your employees
No matter how much you invest in your business, if the faces of your business (your employees) look very unhappy, it is sure to drive customers away. A happy employee will project that happiness to customers and vice-versa. Take care of your employees and ensure they get the expected and satisfactory pay for what they do. 

• Take surveys to get better at what you do
Take surveys, draw graphs based on the feedback you get and ensure you use the results you get to do better at making your customers happy. What is the whole point of taking surveys if nothing would change?
Above all, the rule remains, “keeping your customers at the centre of your business” and everything else will fall in place.

However, with the advent of the internet, a lot of things have changed. Particularly, everyone is on social media; making it the best place to make your business come to limelight. With social media, you can take your dreams to the next level; out of your community and out there, to the rest of the world.

Having over 500 million active users log in daily and about 800million active users monthly; Instagram looks like a great place for advertising. The potential of Instagram is also evident in the fact that it was bought out by Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook just 18 months after it was launched.

Wondering the specific benefits Instagram has your business? We’ve got you!

Five Benefits That Instagram will bestow on your business

Instagram is connected to Facebook

Yes, both platforms are connected. “So what?” You ask.
This makes it easier to leverage Facebook data to reach out to your audience. In addition to this, once you’ve used Facebook for ads in previous times, using Instagram for ads will be no problem, since everything is done via Facebook.

One-third of Instagram users have made use of the app in purchasing at least one product online

In the end, every business is driving at one thing—sales. If a social media platform can fetch you deals you can be sure of, what else would you possibly want?
Research has confirmed the fact that one-third of Instagram users have made use of Instagram in purchasing a product online. Since there are 800 million users of Instagram monthly, this implies that about 2,666,667 million people have once used this platform in buying a product online! This makes Instagram such a liquid market for any business owner.

It is easy to integrate Shopify while using Instagram

This makes it super easy to sell your products, after the advertisement. Hence, Instagram would not be merely a form of publication for you, but also a primary channel of selling your products.

You can track sales and lead conversions when you use Instagram for your adverts

This still buoys down to the fact that Instagram uses the same ad manager as Facebook. Hence, the platform has all the tracking capabilities of Facebook. This makes it easy for you to see everything; from link clicks to conversions and everything in between, on whatever campaigns you run. If you have a goal, this helps you to track your achievements.

The number of users on Instagram is continuously on the rise

There are currently 800 million monthly users o n the platform, and more people are joining daily; teenagers and adults alike. Everyone likes the idea of being on Instagram. This makes it a smart tool (in the form of a social media platform) that every business owner should leverage on.

To Wrap It Up

While we have discussed only five benefits of Instagram in this article, there are several other benefits including the fact that Instagram separates personal profiles from business profiles, Instagram helps you connect with your customers using the appropriate kind of content and the fact that it is a visual platform.

With this new knowledge of yours, start using Instagram today, and you would never regret it.

If you haven’t ever noticed the fact that some URLs start with ”http:// ”, but some others start with ”https:// ” 

So, what’s the fuss about this extra “s”? 

That extra “s” points to the fact that the website you are browsing has an SSL certificate. 

SSL Certificates are small data files that bind a cryptographic key digitally, to an organisation’s details. 

When a website installs the SSL certificates, it activates the https protocol and the padlock and allows only secure connections to exist between that particular web server and browsers.
They are typically used for logins and data transfers, transactions involving credit cards, and securing browsing on social media sites. 

SSL is an updated version of Google, and very soon, websites that do not have SSL certificates will be flagged down. Every time an individual enters their data on a website that is not secure, the data can be accessed by a hacker. 

A hacker would typically put up a small program that cannot be detected on the server that is hosting a website. 
Once a visitor starts putting information on a website, the program gets activated, and the hacker gets the information the individual has typed in. 

More people are getting aware of these schemes, and very soon, 85% of people would stop browsing if they discover a website is not secure. This fact is in accordance with research that was done recently by HubSpot. 

At the beginning of 2017, Google brought out an update that allows the user to know when sites are not secure. This usually leaves individuals with the option to leave a site, when it is not secure. 

Chrome lets a user know if a page is secure, especially if the incognito mode is activated on the user’s browser. Even if the incognito mode is not enabled, once a user begins to fill a form, whether the site is secure or not gets revealed. 

Hence, the wise thing for websites to do is that whenever content is uploaded; particularly one that contains a form, even if it is merely an email, SSL needs to be activated. If such content will be up on different platforms, it is necessary to tell such sites to ensure SSL is set up for them before Google Chrome update is live. 

Enabling SSL is a great move, and it helps users know that the site involved cares about their welfare and what happens with the sensitive information that is dropped on the site. 

SSL is not merely a new fad. It’s a great innovation website’s should embrace. Another advantage of SSL that is very juicy is the fact that it comes with SEO benefits too. Google has confirmed the fact that SSL is now a part of the algorithms used by Google for search ranking. 

To Wrap It Up 

Lastly, here are tips to help users know if a website has SSL: 

• “https://” and not “http://” 

• A padlock icon in the URL bar