Do visitors trust your website? If you believe that offering high-quality products is enough to inspire them to buy from you, you’re wrong. Before making shopping decisions, they will want to learn more about you, read other customers’ options, and check how reliable you are. That’s why you need to use the right trust signals on your website. Just like their mere name says, these are elements of your website that inspire trust in your visitors’ minds.
Here are 8 essential trust factors you should add to your site immediately.
Financial Trust Badges
Before giving you their sensitive data, customers will want to know how secure your site is. That’s where inserting financial security badges, logos, and certificates into your product pages and checkout pages can help. Research says that icons such as PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, or VeriSign are a major trust element for visitors that land on your site for the first time.
Your Domain Name
A domain name benefits your online presence in multiple ways. It identifies you, builds trust with customers, increases your visibility in the SERPs, and boosts brand awareness. That’s why you should choose a memorable domain name. It should be short, simple, and original. Avoid any hyphens, numbers, or similar characters that may make your website difficult to remember.
One of the best ways to make your site easier to find on Google is to use your brand name as your domain name. This way, when searchers google your brand name, your site will be the first thing they see in the SERPs.
When choosing a domain extension, there are many options to choose from and Google treats them the same. Sure, people trust the .com TLD the most and that’s why most sites rely on it. Choosing a country-code TLD may help you target local audiences, but at the same time, it may limit your reach.
Professional Website Design
Did you know that people spend about 15 seconds on your website? In other words, you have 15 seconds to intrigue them and inspire them to explore your pages. For starters, provide seamless website navigation. Simplify your navigation menu, create logical categories and subcategories, add a search box, and use breadcrumbs so users can always know where they are.
If you offer different product or content categories, create original illustrations to differentiate them. For example, Tell A Story presents their readers with different content categories, such as legends, recipes, stories, fairy tales, and so forth. They hired Infostarters to create icons for each category so their readers can browse through their content and find the right type of articles faster. Above all, they also offer an interactive map, letting visitors find stories by their location.
You also need to focus on your site’s functionality. Keep in mind that people are now using multiple devices and screens when interacting with your site. Your goal is to invest in a responsive design that looks nice and loads fast, irrespective of your users’ device.
Finally, pay attention to your site’s overall appeal. Choose color palettes, logo design, typography, and visuals that reflect your brand’s traits and values. Above all, once you choose the right design elements, use them consistently across your site to build a strong visual brand and increase memorability.
HTTPS
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) provides an additional layer of security to customer transactions. Powered by Transport Layer Security (TLS), it encrypts all data traveling from customers’ browsers to your servers. Google strives to encourage all sites to switch from HTTP to HTTPS. Chrome has even started labeling sites using HTTP as “not secure,” which may harm customer relationships and drive many prospective customers away. On the other hand, sites using HTTPS are marked with a green padlock and the “secure” label.
Customer Reviews and Testimonials
Research says that customers trust online reviews as much as their friends and families’ recommendations. For starters, show up on different online business directories and allow customer reviews on your social profiles and website to build trust with your audiences. To take customer experiences to the next level, you could even ask your loyal customers to write testimonials for you. Use their real names and photos as an additional source of trustworthiness. Above all, make your reviews and testimonials prominent. Add them to your homepage, product pages, as well as checkout pages to increase conversions.
Seamless Communication
In the era of sophisticated cyberattacks, customers have become highly skeptical. They’re afraid of online scams and prefer to do business with highly transparent companies. You need to provide your contact information, such as your name, address, map, email address, and phone number. You should also have a detailed contact form that is easily accessible from any place on your website.
Apart from a contact form, you should also insert live chat options, as well as chatbots to provide exceptional customer support 24/7.
Next, connecting with customers via social networks is also critical. These channels are an essential layer of trust you need to add to your business. They show the human side of your brand, help customers understand who you are, and build stronger relationships with them. For starters, add social buttons to your site to make your accounts easier to find.
A Privacy Policy Page
In the era of GDPR, website owners need to focus on their website transparency. Customers want to know how you collect and use their data. And, that’s where having a privacy policy page may help. That’s where you should explain what kind of data you collect from visitors, how you collect this data, how their data is protected, and how you use this data. Above all, your page should explain how website visitors can prevent your site from collecting their data.
High-Quality Content
Apart from increasing your rankings in organic searches and earning quality backlinks, your blog content increases your industry authority. Your goal is to create informative, data-backed, and insightful content that will help your readers solve their real-life problems. You should also diversify your content formats. In addition to articles, you could create infographics, whitepapers, case studies, ultimate guides, videos, podcasts – any kind of content that will educate and engage your readers. Once they understand the value of your content, visitors will keep coming back to it for more tips. Above all, by proving that you know what you’re talking about, you will gain their trust and encourage them to buy from you.
Over to You
Building trust with customers is important for increasing your conversion rate. That’s where using the right trust signals is critical. Sure, these are just some of the numerous trust factors to consider. Remember that it’s not a one-size-fits-all strategy. You need to determine which trust factors make sense for your business, based on your industry, goals, and target audiences.
