Have you ever searched for a specific product or service and end up on a site that you don’t fully trust? Sure you have – we all have. Whether you found it through a search engine listing, banner advertisement, or even heard about it from a friend, there are millions of websites out there suffering from poor credibility. Allowing your website to suffer from this same problem will only hurt your traffic and conversions in the long run. So, what’s the solution to boosting your site’s credibility. Use the following 10 trust factors to make your eyes more ‘trustworthy.’
#1) Brand Your Site With Logos
Some brick-and-mortar businesses launch their websites without uploading their official logo simply because they don’t possess the necessary technical knowledge. By not using your company’s official logo on the website, though, you’ll send a red flag to visitors, which may turn them away. Even if you have little-to-no graphic design experience, you can outsource a professional designer to create a digital copy of your company’s logo (assuming you don’t have one) and upload it to your blog.
#2) Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions Page
Let’s face it, you probably don’t check out the privacy policy and terms & conditions pages when you land on your favorite sites. In fact, I can’t think of the last time I’ve ever voluntarily visited one of these pages. With that said, adding them will boost your website’s credibility, translating into more conversations and probably better search engine rankings. If you need a little inspirational help on developing privacy policy and terms & conditions pages, snoop around on sites in a similar niche to see how theirs are structured. You obviously don’t want to copy their pages word-for-word, but viewing them will give you a better idea on how to create yours.
#3) About Us Page
Of course, publishing an ‘about us’ page is another simple way to boost your site’s credibility. Just as the name suggests, this page is used to convey your goals and objectives, while providing some insight into how your website/business was started. Again, this is a page that probably won’t receive a significant amount of traffic, but it’s still a key step in winning over the confidence of your visitors. Tips on building an ‘about us’ page:
- State the purpose of your business/website.
- Include a brief paragraph or two on the origins of your business.
- If this website is for a physical brick-and-mortar business, include your street address along with a contact phone number.
- Keep it short and sweet (no one wants to read an essay-long ‘about us’ page).
#4) Official Domain Email Address
Nothing screams unprofessional more than a business website displaying a generic Gmail or Yahoo email address. If you’re going to display a business email address on your website, make sure it’s associated with your actual domain and not some generic mail service. Ask yourself, which one of these looks more professional — [email protected], or [email protected]? If I saw the later on a website while searching for a tree cutting service, I would turn the other way without looking back.
#5) Speed
Speed is yet another factor critical trust factor that plays a direct role in visitor confidence. Visitors will naturally grow weary of websites that take a long time to load, causing them to exit back without taking action. Not only will this affect your conversions, but Google has come out to publicly state that speed is a contributing factor in their search ranking algorithm. According to this post on googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com, “While site speed is a new signal, it doesn’t carry as much weight as the relevance of a page. Currently, fewer than 1% of search queries are affected by the site speed signal in our implementation and the signal for site speed only applies for visitors searching in English on Google.com at this point.”
#6) Social Media Engagement
Implementing social media networking buttons into your site will boost its credibility. When a visitor lands on your website and notices that 50, 100 or 1,000 other people have ‘liked’ your page, they’ll feel more confident taking action. This, of course, translates into more sales and revenue. You can read more about the benefits of social media for businesses here.
#7) Design & Layout
Lastly, the overall design and layout of a website will affect its credibility. Sites with poor navigation, bad designs and a general lack of aesthetics will raise red flags among visitors, sending them packing the other way. On the other hand, you can encourage visitors to take action on your site by using attractive designs, eye-catching color palettes and clean, easy-to-find navigation links. Make sure your website contains all of these features to improve its function and credibility.
