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June 23, 2014 Comments closed

Norton™ Secured Seal 101: Why It Is Considered Important For E-Commerce Websites

in ssl certificates

Note: Seal in Search feature is no longer available now.

Although concepts like ‘Online Shopping’ and ‘Online Banking’ have been widely accepted across the world, there are many people who are still cynical about submitting their sensitive personal information on the Internet. However, looking at the plethora of cyber-attacks, phishing and online breaches carried out by attackers, even devoted users of online banking services or seasoned Internet shoppers are hesitant to try out a completely new website or service.

After closely observing the behavioral pattern of website visitors, researchers and subject-experts have come up with an observation. According to them, the website visitors are never interested in thoroughly understanding the technical details about the encryption provided by a website. All they are really looking for is a clear visual cue or a badge on the webpage that assures them about the website’s legitimacy and safety. Such badges are popularly known as ‘Trustmarks’ or ‘Site Seals’.

Today, there are several options available in the market of security seals, but the name that stands out of the list is Norton™ Secured Seal. It is considered to be the #1 trust mark on the Internet. Before finding out the reasons behind its undisputed position in the market, let’s find out what these badges and seals are really all about?

What Are Site Seals?

These days, website owners invest a lot of efforts, time and money in building their e-commerce websites. From optimizing websites for search engines and putting together world-class content, to promoting throughout the web, there are several aspects of a website designing and marketing that the owners take into consideration to attract the attention of the Internet users to get them to visit their site. But all that would end up being worthless, if the owners manage to get just the visitors’ attention and are not able to sustain it. To retain the visitors’ attention, the website owners need to convince them about the integrity and authenticity of the website by placing visual cues or icons like Site Seals on the webpage, especially when on the check-out page of an e-commerce website.

Such badges or seals are displayed on a webpage by the owner with an intention of instilling trust among the visitors. Available in varied patterns, they serve multiple other purposes like informing visitors that the transaction they are about to perform on a website is secure; that the website is not vulnerable; and prove that the owner of the site has met an external standard of privacy controls.

Trusted Certificate Authorities (or, the third party authorities) provide these seals after stringently vetting applicants to ensure their legitimacy. These authorities promote a set of standards and principles like privacy, security and reliability, which the website owner must follow in order to receive the trust seal.

Norton Secured Seal: History & Evolution

Ever since, Symantec© acquired VeriSign™ in 2010, the brand started creating a comprehensive portfolio of ‘Website Security Solutions’ integrating VeriSign brand and its technologies to develop market-leading technologies. After the merger, Symantec© also started offering integrated SSL authentication and security solutions like malware scans, vulnerability assessments, etc.

Now the Norton™ Secured Seal is aptly representing this portfolio, after Symantec Corp announced its decision to combine the VeriSign checkmark with the Norton™ brand in 2012. As per its Press Release, the seal is displayed more than half a billion times per day on websites in about 170 countries worldwide. It is also exhibited in search results on enabled browsers.

This indeed was a clever move on Symantec’s part to combine the brand equity strengths of Symantec® and Norton™ to create the most trusted brand for protecting online identities and the information stored on the web. As of April 17 2012, Symantec® started updating all the old VeriSign seals with Norton™ Secured Seals.

How Norton® Secured Seal Can Prove Beneficial to an E-Commerce Website?

Norton®Secured Seal is an effective measure that is valued by business customers and e-commerce owners both for its ability to provide a safe and secure online experience for its users, and by generating confidence and trust in them. A website’s ability to appeal to new visitors and turn them into customers leads to a high level of website traffic which ultimately adds to the website’s success on the Internet.

By proudly displaying trust seals by Norton®, visitors are re-assured that the website they are visiting can be trusted, and can complete transactions and sign-ins with confidence.

Here are few reasons why Norton® Secured Seal is the most successful security seal:

Constant Protection from Malware: Visitors can conveniently see that Symantec® has validated both your business and website, and that the site has passed the malware scans. As a trusted certificate authority, Symantec scans the whole website daily and instantly notifies the webmaster about any attacks on it. Symantec provides further information on malware removal at the Symantec® Trust Center.

Seal-In-Search – The Search Engine Support:

Symantec® offers a unique feature to all its users called Seal-In-Search. This feature enables customers to see the Norton® Seal displayed right next to the site in the search results of popular search engines. This helps users earn more clicks as it shows the website is verified by Symantec® at a glance, allowing visitors to pick the site they feel is the safest, and assures the visitor it is a malware-free link, just by viewing the search results.

Instill Trust and Confidence in your users:By displaying Norton® Secured Seal, users can generate a torrent of confidence among the visitors. With a ‘recognition rate’ of about 86%, this site seal is a highly trusted seal that reflects the legitimacy of the website and its owner.

Shopping Cart Abandonment: Case studies reflect an increase of 10-34% in online sales and transactions when the visitors come across Norton® Secured Seal on a webpage. Moreover, during a recent study, it was observed that there were about 11% of respondents who chose to abandon the shopping cart and not go forward with the transaction on finding the web-page was not stamped with a Norton® Trusted Seal.

Avoid getting blocked in Search Engine Results: The benefits of search engines when it comes to marketing and promotion for e-commerce is no secret. And as per the norms, it’s quite natural for the search engine to block infected site that even gives off a hint of being maliciously infected. By getting a Norton® Secured Seal, you get a scheduled Symantec® Malware Scan daily, which automatically shields the site from any chance of getting infected by malicious software.

Norton® Secured Seal – Leading the Number Game
The gushing reviews from customers about the Norton® Secured Seal are matched by the results of several extensive quantitative studies conducted by the brand. The results were very favorable for the Norton® seal and clearly emphasized what their devoted customers had to say in their reviews:

Displaying Norton™ Secured Seal’s black checkmark encased in the Symantec “pill” is a perfect means to boost your customers’ sense of trust and confidence. So, go ahead, place one on your e-commerce website today!