While website security is the most important feature for many potential shoppers that visit your site, the number and type of options that are available can often be confusing for companies that are setting up their shopping cart.

Here are some ways to shop for SSL certificates so that your site will end up meeting the standards that search engines are now requiring:

Use a certified vendor

There are ways that you can generate your own certificates and use them with your website. The downside of this is that over time, there are potential conflicts with people that visit your site after being referred by a search engine. In some cases, the search engine will claim that your site security is not what it should be in order for them to send your client directly to you. Because you obviously want to avoid this type of label, finding a hosting company like register.com that works with only certified ssl vendors is a good idea. A certified vendor may charge a little bit more, but their product is normally easy to install and will pass any security tests that are thrown at it.

Shop for price through your hosting vendor

Just like big box retailers can offer specials that many smaller retailers cannot beat in terms of price, hosting vendors that have long-established relationships with SSL vendors are likely to be able to offer you a lower price to buy a certificate from them. A quick look at SSL certificate vendors sites should confirm this. Another plus to using your hosting vendor to purchase a certificate is that they have completely tested all certificates with their site for a significant period of time, so that there will not be any chance of a failed implementation.

Cover everything

Once you get your SSL certificate, the next question for many site developers is how much of your site should be made secure or https? The answer in today’s market is that you should secure everything possible. You should also ask any potential hosting vendor if there are parts of their shopping cart or software that will not allow you to encrypt them like you can the rest of the site. In most cases, you will likely find that a good vendor will allow you to encrypt the entire site or almost all of it without it being a task that takes more than a few minutes. Again, however, it is a good idea to cover as much as you can so that you meet the more and more stringent requirements that companies like Google are making standard.

Finding a hosting vendor that has a decently-priced and standard SSL certificate option is one of the more important parts of putting your ecommerce website together. By also ensuring that they have automated the implementation process so that it does not take very long to apply your certificate once you get it, you will end up saving time and money.