PCI compliance is important to your website whether it is required of you or not. Online shoppers are becoming more concerned these days about shopping on certain websites. A great way that you can prove to your customers that your site is safe is by following PCI compliance.

PCI compliance is an obligation for any business, third party credit card processor or acquirer, who is storing, processing or receiving credit card information in any form. PCI compliance involves following a set of security standards put into place by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) council. These PCI standards consist of 12 security requirements that are divided up within six categories.

1. Maintain a secure network.
2. Protect cardholder data.
3. Maintain a vulnerability management program.
4. Implement strong access control measures.
5. Regularly monitor and test networks.
6. Maintain and information security policy.

So this gives you some idea of what is required, but regardless of what you must do to be in compliance, the best reason for website owners to have PCI compliance is basically to offer protection to their customers. A customer will be more likely to shop on your site if they know that their information is protected, and being PCI compliant is a great way to prove this.

One company that I have found to be a great option for PCI compliance is Trust Guard. They offer PCI scanning as well as other third party verification and trust seals, and all at an affordable price. With a company like Trust Guard you will be able to prove to your visitors with the use of trust seals that your website is safe and that they can buy from your site securely. This will ultimately give you more sales.