Adam Radly
Founder
Founder of IIMAGINE.
More than $100M raised.
TEDx Talk about passion > 1 Million views. Founder of World Reconciliation Day with Nelson Mandela. Founder of One Direct Democracy.
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30 Website Trust Factors: Use Them To Increase Conversions
Website trust factors influence your credibility and that has a big impact on your conversion rates. This is a list of 30 trust factors you need to address now.
If you’re just getting started one of the biggest challenges you need to overcome is establishing credibility.
]Given that you won’t be personally interacting with many customers your credibility has to be established with your online presence, specifically your website.
BJ Fogg is one of the worlds leading researchers on web credibility.
He said that web credibility is about making your website come across as trustworthy and knowledgeable.
Your website is usually the first point of contact for your customers so it’s responsible for first impressions.
You all know the expression – you only get one chance to make a first impression.
If your website is seen to be credible by your customers, people will trust what it says, feel more comfortable about sharing their personal data and feel more confident about contacting you or spending money.
30 Website Trust Factors You Need To Address
So let’s work through a checklist of things that impact the credibility of your website:
1. Web design matters
People do judge a book by its cover and they will judge your website by its design.
If you are not a designer then you need to use templates that were created by designers or you need to hire a designer.
he reality is that the more attractive the design the greater feeling of trustworthiness and professionalism in the minds of your audience.
Check out this guide from NN Group – it goes into more detail about web design trust factors.
2. Make your address and phone number visible. You should at least include it in the footer because everybody is expecting to see it in the footer. Of course you can also add it to the header or sidebar.
3. Make it easy to contact you
Include a link to a contact form in the navigation menu. People usually look for it at the end of the menu.
Websites that have no contact methods are suspicious.
4. Message relevance
When somebody arrives at your website they will be looking for signs that indicate that they’re in the right place.
Don’t just send everybody to the homepage.
Try to make sure that the initial content that anybody sees is relevant to whatever it is they were looking for.
5. Spelling and grammar
The occasional error is not a problem however anything more than that is a big problem.
Also keep in mind that people have some tolerance for spelling and grammatical errors in blog posts but they have zero tolerance for errors in sales copy in places like your homepage.
6. Simple language
People have to understand you. If you know your customer well you should know how much assumed knowledge to include in your content.
If you don’t know your customer it will be difficult for you to communicate in the language they’re expecting.
If you “don’t speak their language” they will think you’re not legit.
7. Link to external sites that reference you
If you’re just getting started you can ignore this for now.
If you do happen to have articles written about you or your organization in the media or in any website that has any authority you should link to them.
People are always more interested in what other people think of you rather than what you think of yourself.
8. Include bios and photos
Regardless of whether you’re a team or a one person business working from home, you should present bios and photos of yourself and the team.
9. Office photos
If you do happen to have a real office with real people you should show it off.
Take a picture of it from the outside and the inside and put them on your website.
10. Don’t use stock photos that look like stock photos
Nothing looks more ridiculous then a smiling customer service person with a headset or two men wearing suits and shaking hands.
11. Visible return and refund policies (if applicable)
You only see this on credible websites. You never see it questionable websites.
12. Email policy
People want to know what you will do with their email address if they give it to you. Will you rent, share it, sell it, spam them?
13. Big statements or claims must be backed up
People are more likely to trust you if you provide evidence from independent parties, neutral experts or scientific studies.
14. Don’t use superlatives
15. Detailed product information
Make sure that you’re actually providing sufficient information for the customer to be able to make a decision.
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16. Show your pricing
A lot of people don’t show their prices because they want potential customers to call or get in contact.
Most people assume this will result in a very pushy sales call so they won’t contact you.
17. Show your client list
This is obviously sensitive because most clients don’t want to be mentioned publicly but if you can get permission to use a client’s name on your website it will help you get more clients.
Potential customers always want to see examples of customers that are similar to them using your product or service.
It’s an indication that they’re in the right place. Social proof leads to sales.
18. Mention the number of customers
If you have an impressive number of customers go ahead and mention it on your website. It’s another form of social proof.
19. Partnerships
Mention any partnerships, alliances or associations with people or organizations that have high credibility.
People always assume that these kinds of associations can only happen after a lot of due diligence.
Some prospects don’t want to waste time doing due diligence on you so they look for evidence of due diligence from somebody else that they trust.
20. Use testimonials
Most people assume they’re fake and in some cases, they don’t make any difference but it’s still better to have them not to have them.
21. Case studies of your work
This is a great way to show examples of how you approach various situations.
It helps potential customers and clients understand how you might approach their situation and imagine what it would be like to work with you.
22. Customer reviews
People do trust customer reviews from some sources. Amazon is a good example. If you have real reviews from a trusted source include them on your website.
23. Secure online payments
If you accept credit cards online tell your customers that you’re using the best available online payment security protocols.
24. Include a trust mark
You often see these next to the payment form.
25. If your website doesn’t have a blog, create one
It helps you in two ways.
The first is that people can see that your site is frequently updated.
Secondly, it provides information that demonstrates your expertise.
If you don’t like writing you can create videos on a YouTube channel or Podcast episodes and embed them into your website.
26. Recommendations
If you can convince somebody that has authority in your niche to provide a recommendation then add it to your website.
At this point you should be seeing a trend.
People want to know what other people think of you not what you think of yourself.
27. Include a jobs page
Only real companies are hiring people.
28. Make sure everything works
Dead links and forms that don’t work correctly diminish your credibility.
29. Use social media
You can get away with using one social media platform but it needs to contain fresh content.
Some people think that a dormant social presence equals a dormant business.
30. No blinking banners for anything that looks like hype.
Conversion Optimization
The trust factors above are critical but your conversion rates will also be influenced by your customer and competitor research and the resulting unique selling proposition.
People need to be clear about why they should buy from you and not your competitor.
Check out this guide about how to do customer research and this guide about how to do competitor research (and complete a competitive analysis) so that you can develop a unique selling proposition.
Download Our Free ‘Start A Business’ Guide
Use our “Impact Entrepreneurship” checklist to start your business and make the world better.