Credibility is one of the most important qualities an ecommerce site can have. Potential customers decide whether or not your site is trustworthy within seconds of landing on one of your pages. This gives you a very narrow window within which to convey your integrity. What’s more, search engine algorithms assess the veracity of your site as well. Miss the mark and your site will rank lower than it otherwise might.
With those factors in mind, here’s how to ensure your website conveys credibility.
Design Attributes
A crisp design punctuated with engaging photography and well-crafted copy tells site visitors you have pride of presentation. These factors also telegraph the level of sophistication you’re applying to your operation. This can be the difference between being perceived as fly-by-night or in it for the long haul.
Pay close attention to your layout, fonts and consistency issues—while eliminating broken links as well as grammar, punctuation and typographical errors. If you don’t have one already, create a logo to be used in all of your online presences, as well as customer-facing communications. This will make all forms of your content readily identifiable as yours.
Intuitive Navigation
Another clue to your credibility and professionalism is the amount of thought put into your site’s user experience. Focus your efforts around ensuring functionality. Users consider helpful and easy-to-use sites more credible.
Social Proof
Word of mouth is the best form of advertising. Honest reports from satisfied customerscarry a lot of weight with site visitors. Reviews and testimonials are very powerful in this regard. However, you should know peoplehave become very good at detecting false reviews. Fakingtestimonials will come back to bite you in the rear.One of the best ways to convey credibility is to actually BE credible.
Regular Updates
Keeping your content fresh tells people you’re serious about your business. What’s more, old content can say your business is no longer functioning. Regular updates also benefityour SEO. Search engine algorithms give more credence to sites with the freshest content. Keeping your site fresh helps it stay top of mind for web crawlers.
Informative About Us and Contact Us Pages
Shoppers like to get a sense of the nature of the people with whom they dobusiness. Let them peek behind the curtain to see what you’re about, why you do what you do and what’s important to you. Post photos and/or videos of your behind-the-scenes operations incorporating your employees and the like.
Along these same lines, make it as easy as possible for people to get in touch with you. Rather than sending shoppers on a scavenger hunt to find your contact information, provide a phone number, a physical address, an email address and live chat (if your budget permits).
Post Trust Badges
Join the Better Business Bureau and run its logo on your site. Get certified by managed security services providers like McAfee, ControlScanand VeriSign to demonstrate your concern for customers’ personally identifiable information. Keep your SSL certificate up to date so your site always comes up as secure in shoppers’ browsers.
These five suggestions will help ensure your ecommerce website conveys credibility. After you’ve made the sale, follow up to ensure buyers are happy with their purchases and ask what you can do to improve their shopping experience. In addition to demonstrating honesty, these actions will stand you in good stead when it comes to earning repeat business.