How to Add Trust to Your Website Design for Conversion?

If you’re an online business that sells products or a company that lives on lead generation, then having a trustworthy website design or app will make the difference between your users sticking around and engaging with your site, or them jumping ship, to find an alternative solution or going to a competitor.

Sure, you might be spending a fortune on your marketing efforts driving traffic to your site, hoping to convert that traffic to potential customers, but imagine if all your users land on your website expecting to see an established and secure brand, but instead are confronted with poor user experience or a look-&-feel that sends out a smell of scam, phishing or even worst, just an unreliable company.

Once a user lands on your website, you only have a few seconds to gain his trust before he develops an opinion about your brand.. and if it’s a negative one…you’re going to be fighting a losing battle, trying to change his opinion. The first impression is what always counts, so get it right the first time round!

Think about this: You decide to go out for dinner, you’ve heard of a new establishment and decide to try it out. You get there at rush hour only to find the place completely empty. Wouldn’t you think twice about eating there? The first thing you would think of is “why isn’t anyone here?” – This already raises doubt and will probably influence your eating experience.

So the same goes for a website, just imagine landing on an eCommerce website to buy a product and you don’t see any reviews or testimonials about the service or product. That would immediately raise doubt, no?

“Trust” can be defined in many ways, but when implementing trust on your website, it is important to have a wide array of elements, that increase the loyalty of your brand, convince your potential clients that you are a reputable company and provide your viewers with a feeling of security.

Don’t let your users think, remove any friction and try to satisfy their needs on their first impression. You will see an increase in results and your level of engagement will sky rocket.

In this article, we are going to discuss practical ways on how you can implement Trust on your site. Some of these tactics you even implement today.

Implementing Trust on Your Site

1) Does Your Site Look Good on All Devices?

In today’s competitive industry, not having an amazing looking website is a big problem, but not having one that is responsive and looks good on all devices is a sin!
In 2015, over 55% of the world’s traffic was through mobile devices. There are some countries that don’t even have physical land based internet structures and therefore only use the internet through their mobile devices.

Some companies just can’t grasp the concept of usability, so they have a one-size-fits-all web design. The website looks great on desktop, but when being viewed from a mobile device, the users has to pinch, scroll and encounter endless frustration just to get the information he/she is looking for. This often leads to higher bounce rates and lowers the level of “trust” in your brand.

Try to get that user back, after he was breaking his brains trying to read the information on your website – mission impossible!

Remember, you are designing for people so make sure you know from which devices they are coming from and what type of information they need. This you can easily see in Google Analytics or any other analytical tool.

Another mistake we often see happening is website owners having the same information on all devices. What looks good on desktop might feel long and frightening on a mobile device. If you showcase details about your product on your site, make sure you keep only the relevant information on your mobile version and drop the rest. You don’t want your users to feel that there is endless information causing them to scroll and scroll and scroll… most will give up and leave. Remember that internet users have a short attention spam and its better to give them the relevant information upfront.

2) Social Trust and Testimonials

This was a big thing a couple of years ago, but since then, it has gone mainstream and most companies now exhibit trust sentences all over their sites. Some of which may not always be true. Do you really know if John Doe who states that the product you are going to buy is real and that he has really tried the service or product you are about to purchase? How can you tell the difference between fakes and real testimonials, that are quoted on the site.

First of all, always scan the site for social trust and testimonials, but more important pay attention to the minor details. Does the site showcase the testimonial together with the person’s full name and company like Spotify (who does an amazing job and showcases their clients)?

Sometimes we see sites with testimonials that look like this:

“This is a great product, I would highly recommend it. There service was amazing” – John P

Who in their right mind would think that John P is a real person?

Ask your clients if you can showcase their testimonials with their full name, job title and even the company they work for, that is backing the testimonial. In most cases, they won’t mind. Whether you market B2B or B2C, get feedback from your customers and put it on your site. Don’t be shy and make sure that the people giving the testimonial are aware that they are going to be on your site.

Another way to evoke trust is to use “numbers”. Show your viewers how many people have purchased your product and are currently using it. BuiltbyBuffalo does this well by showing you all types of stats.

The Facebook Page “Like Box” is another a great way to increase trust on your site. Just imagine entering a site and learning that your friends are using the product or have already been here. When people see familiar faces they feel more comfortable.

3) Use Secure Badges and Third Party Seals

Security is a major issue and one that can’t be stressed upon enough. People that enter your site want to feel a certain level of security in your brand. If you’re running an eCommerce website or offering a service that involves credit card payments then showcase the payment solutions you’re using. If you need to comply with any type of regulation then make sure your clients know who is monitoring your business.

There are a few ways to do this whether it be trust badges in the footer, or even a sidebar note that mentions that you’re secure through a third-party provider—anything helps. Some companies showcase an variety of badges and seals below their Homepage banner to boost their visitor’s first impression. Please, don’t just add a badge, think about its’ placement. Not everyone is going to scroll to the bottom of your page, so why hide trust elements there.

4) Give your Site Some Life

People like doing business with people and not with companies. Obviously if you are a well known brand then there is no problem, but if you are a small company or one that isn’t as popular as Amazon, Ebay and all the other big players then you might want to give your brand a face, and a good looking one.

Oh and please…. do not use StockPhoto images. One mistake that many businesses do is try to add a human factor to the site but then use purchased images that appear on thousands of other sites. This is a big NO NO and tends to have the opposite effect. It will crush your “trust”.

If you want to give your site some life and increase the level of trust, then choose your pictures wisely. Take photos of your staff and have some fun with it. Some sites display small pictures of their team while others will put a statement from someone high up in the company. If you employ or are working with a famous person then get them on the site. If you can get a celebrity endorsement, it is even better.
24option does an amazing job at this with Boris Becker.

5) Make Sure Your Website Is Up-To-Speed

Apart from the obvious of having all your company’s contact details on the site and making sure that your content is up-to-date, make sure that the site functions correctly. Sites that load slowly or constantly crash will impact your user’s tolerance and decrease your site’s level of trust.

Furthermore, check that all your pages are live and you don’t have any 404 errors. Did you know that site speed is one the factors Google takes into consideration when ranking a website. Furthermore Google continues to put emphasis on site speed because of the rising use of mobile devices.

You can use Google’s web developer tools to check the performance of your site or log into your analytics and check your site speed. Another great tool is Pingdom which also gives you a site performance grade. 

Also poor coding can cause serious delays in your sites loading time and prevent from Google crawling the site properly. If you feel that your site is slow, then it is probably killing your conversions and you might want to consider a tune up. Always work with a good web development team.

Final Thoughts

After reading this article, we hope that you’ll look at your site from a different perspective. You might not need a complete site overhaul, but implementing just a few of the things above could transform your site from a conversion killer to a conversion winner. If you’re not sure on how to get started, feel free to contact us for help.