Do you have all the relevant trust indicators on your website?
Below is a list of 22 trust indicators that every business owner should consider having on their website depending on the products and services they offer. These trust indicators help your visitors convert much more easily as they address the primary concerns of a potential buyer when making a purchasing decision.
The interesting fact is that most people don’t realise why they don’t trust a website or are willing to buy from a website. They just get a feeling or vibe, these are an accumulation of multiple trust factors missing that does not speak to their subconscious and drives them away from your website.
Let’s talk about the needs of your buyer and resolve any reserved opinions they may have by doing the following:
- Professional name
The name of your business is very important as it communicates a great deal of information about you and your business. Consider your users who are either brand aware or service aware. Brand aware customers don’t care about the name as they know the brand and know its reputation and therefore have a certain high level of expectations. These users tend to attract a lot of repeat customers and recommendations.
Service-aware customers will consider multiple factors to establish a level of credibility and trust before buying from and the name is one of those factors that is very high on the list.
- High-quality design
Cheap will attract cheap and indicate no love was given. If you cannot love your website, business and be willing to invest some time and money in designing something nice, why would you care about anyone else?
So be sure you get your designs tested based on your customer’s needs and perhaps consider doing some A/B testing.
- Security
Make sure your website is secure. Having an unsecured site is the fastest way to never get anyone to buy from you. You will get penalized by search engines such as Google and Antivirus software’s will block your site and alert the user that your website is not safe to use.
- Guarantees
Offer your client simply guarantees that is open, clean and honest, and easy to understand. After all, you need them to become repeat customers so remove any hurdles that may be in front of them.
- Awards
Has your business, staff, products, and services won any awards accreditations or perhaps any certificates and acknowledgments from your community indicating community support given by your business.
- Client Reviews
Client reviews are an amazing way to remove any doubt someone may have, however, best reviews are those that are not published on your site so it’s not perceived as biased. A great way to get reviews is videos, social media ratings as well as Google Local business ratings as well as bunch of other online services such as
- WOMO
- Amazon
- Angie’s List
- Better Business Bureau (BBB)
- Bing Places
- Citysearch
- Consumer Reports
- Demand Force
Then link them from your website to other third-party sites. I know this is not always easy if you are a new business or a startup, however, you should be actively asking for reviews.
- Customer Support
Ensure you have an amazing support for your customers and website visitors, have a look at Zappos customer services, wow them at every turn. Read this from Forbes about Zappos
- Ease of communication
As part of customer service don’t make it too hard for them to communicate, as I mentioned in my other blog post (Does your website accommodate for different types of users? ) accommodate for their needs.
- Produce up to date and relevant content
Regularly publish new content in blogs and social media, be in the forefront of your industry. Produce good quality content that helps solve business problems and adds value to their time in consuming your content. This will make them want to come back and build the trust in your ability knowledge and experience.
- Shipping/delivery options
If you are delivering products then considering using different shipping options.Sometimes people will need a product more urgently and don’t have the time to wait. Perhaps allow for air freight, pickup, express delivery or deliver to POBox.
It’s becoming more and more common that companies are delivering a product within 4 hours/same day delivery. If you are a fashion store I highly recommend that you explore this option as it has a major impact on the customer’s buying decision.
- Payment Options
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of any online sales and service platform is how people pay you. Clearly, communicate payment option and security of people’s payment details. For example here at Website.Fail we use PayPal as all payments processed by PayPal have an insurance guarantee and protects both the buyer and seller, we do not keep or store any payment information. It’s also a good idea to provide different payment options. However, if you are a start-up and don’t have the budget to set up different payment systems then we recommend PayPal as users can also pay with their credit card or PayPal account linked to their bank account securely.
- Reliable hosting
Don’t get penalized by search engines and miss out on sales because you decided to go cheap on your hosting. Or have a hosting provider that does not have the support infrastructure your business needs or simply just unreliable. Invest in a good host and build a relationship with them, if you are expecting to grow, talk to them and see how they can help you. Avoid reseller hosting go directly to the hosting provider that manages the infrastructure and have a 24/7/365 support team reachable via different means.
We have been using SiteGround for a number of years and highly recommend them we have gotten to know a number of the Staff and The CEO over the years.
- Fast loading website
Make sure your website loads in under 2 seconds else you will miss out on rankings by search engines as well as face a high level of bounce rate from your customers. There are dozens of factors that contribute to a website speed. When we do a review of your website we will show you how to fix the major issues affecting your websites and how to fix them.
- Use branded emails
This is one biggest problem I have when it comes to branding. When I see a van with an email address that says something like MyComapnyNames@yahoo7.com. I ask myself why? Why would you do that and print it on your fleet? You need simple email addresses such as review@webiste.fail instead of website.fail@hotmail.com etc… you can easily manage your emails if your hosting is not providing emails by using Google Apps. Google will walk you through the entire process step-by-step and you can be up and running within 30 minutes.
- An easy to remember domain name
Domain names are important to be memorable, as it doesn’t just affect the domain name but also your email address. It’s always good to use simple names and a common TLD or Top Level Domains. When registering try and use a common term as it will also help you with your ranking. Anything that is easy for the user and adds value to the user on your website it’s also favored by the search engines. It’s important to know that a search engine’s job is to replicate a user’s behavior and understand the usability of a website.
A simple domain name will help the user in trusting your brand and website more.
- A good contact page
Contact pages can be a pain, so many websites ask for so much information that users tend to avoid contacting the business.
When designing a contact form consider the objective of the form remember it’s not to qualify a sale or a client but simply a way to ask a question. From there if you think the user may be a potential client you may direct them to a proper sales funnel or system to qualify them accordingly.
Asks for minimum amount info needed, it’s a contact request not a credit card application.
- Clear messaging and content
Get to the point don’t beat around the bush. Make sure your page or website tells a new visitor in a second or two exactly what you do. If they have to dig around and try and figure out what you do then it’s not worth their time.
We review websites. So We ask, how good is your website?
Simple and to the point.
- Have videos showcasing your brand, products, services and team
Videos are the easiest way to communicate a complicated message. Have video testimonials, products demos, events, staff activities, office, warehouse, your delivery or maintenance vehicles going out. Share with people:
- Who you are?
- Where you are?
- What you do?
- and what people say about you?
- About us page or my story
It’s always important to tell a story about who you are and where you com from. Share your startup history the humble beginning to now. Be human, communicate, don’t create walls for people to contact you. Present the true you, your hobbies, interests and passion for what you do and WHY you do what you do. Here is my story.
