SSL Certificate
When You Want More
With an SSL certificate from Northwest, you can trust that your website data is secure. Get free SSL security for 90 days when you hire Northwest to form your LLC. After the 90-day free trial, it’s just $9/month.
What You Get With Our SSL Security Service
An SSL Certificate protects communication between you and your customers by encrypting (or disguising) sensitive information. Whether you’re starting an LLC or corporation, you’ll want an online presence like a business website. And your website needs an SSL Certificate to safely collect customer data.
Here’s what you get with an SSL Certificate from Northwest:
The annual fee for an SSL certificate varies but can be $800 or more. With Northwest, you get the first 90 days of SSL security totally free. After that, it’s just $9 a month. Plus, since the service renews monthly, you won’t have to worry about your certificate expiring and leaving your business website unsecured.
Remember making up a secret language to pass notes in class? SSL uses the same principles as that—just much harder for outsiders to crack. SSL security encrypts the data shared on your site, protecting you from a data breach. This is especially important for websites that collect customer information, like credit card numbers. Having an SSL certificate is expected for online businesses, so getting one is important for maintaining a good reputation.
Search engines take a lot of things into consideration when ranking websites, and SSL is one of the few aspects you can directly control. If your website isn’t protected by SSL, search engines will consider it an unsafe site, ranking it further down in search results. The better you rank, the higher the chance that someone will click on your website. An SSL certificate makes it more likely that search engines will see your website as legitimate, helpful, and trustworthy.
Although the everyday internet user might not be able to tell you what an SSL certificate is, they know when a website has one. That’s because most internet browsers will warn the user if a website isn’t secure. The URL of a website with an SSL certificate will begin with “https,” (the “s” stands for Secure) and will have a padlock symbol next to it. When a customer is looking to visit a website or make a purchase, they might think twice about a website their computer warns them isn’t safe. And worse, they wouldn’t be wrong. Without SSL security, their data is more likely to end up in the wrong hands.
How Our SSL Security Service Works
SSL Certificates are like subscription services. An SSL certificate typically lasts for about one year before it expires and needs to be renewed. The price for a yearly subscription varies, but it can cost upwards of $800/year.
Not ready to shell out close to a grand on protection you need but don’t want? We offer SSL security as a part of our low-cost monthly Business Identity package, cutting your upfront costs and reducing the need to remember an expiration date in time to get a new one.
Northwest offers a 90-day free trial of SSL security when you hire us to form your company or when you hire us to act as your registered agent. After your free trial, it’s just $9 a month to keep your website security active, and you can cancel it at any time inside your online account.
FORM AN LLC – $39 + State Fees
Why Your Website Needs an SSL Certificate
An SSL Certificate is a digital product that can be rented for a specific period of time, like a subscription service. Website owners purchase the certificate as a way to establish trust between their website and their customers’ devices. Like any software, SSL needs to be updated regularly, which is why SSL certificates need to be renewed about every 13 months.
It’s up to the business to install a certificate on their server to create an SSL-secure website for their customers.
Why trust that websites with an SSL Certificate are secure?
Before issuing an SSL Certificate, a Certificate Authority (CA) checks out the domain and owner details of the website. Like a bouncer checking your I.D. before letting you into a 21+ bar, the CA checks that you are who you say you are. After you’re verified, you’re issued your certificate, and your website is considered safe by other web browsers.
What information is included in an SSL Certificate?
An SSL Certificate carries information inside of it that it transmits to the web servers your site interacts with. That information is used to validate that your website is safe. Your SSL Certificate will contain the following information:
- Your domain name
- Certificate authority
- Certificate authority’s digital signature
- Issuance date
- Expiration date
- Public key
- Version of the software
Do I have to use SSL security?
Depending on your industry and business needs, you might be legally required to have SSL or another form of security. For example, businesses offering payment/online transactions must include an SSL certificate.
SSL Security FAQs
With other SSL security providers, you’ll need to make plans to renew your certificate before it expires, typically thirteen months after you first purchase.
With Northwest’s service, your SSL Certificate automatically renews every month. This keeps your costs low. It also reduces the burden of remembering and planning when to renew.
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is a cryptographic system that allows two parties (such as a business and a client) to be connected if they both trust a third party. Imagine going to a dinner party where a mutual friend introduces you to a stranger. A PKI is like the event itself, the “infrastructure” that lets you two meet.
TCP is a communication protocol that determines how data is shared between two systems. It differs from SSL in many ways, but the most important is that TCP does not encrypt or authenticate data, it just transfers it. SSL actually protects data.
