How Building Trust On Your Website Helps Improve Conversion Rates

With so many new sites popping up every day — it can be hard for visitors to differentiate yours from thousands of others. One problem many digital marketing sites have is convincing visitors that they’re legitimate, reputable businesses. People want to know their money is safe. With so many stories of scams and other frauds online it can be hard to build trust with visitors. There are a few tips, however, that you can use to set your site apart from the rest, increase trust and therefore improve sales. And we’re going to look at them…

Why trust matters for your business

You can’t get people to spend money on your site if they don’t think it’s safe. No matter how good your sales funnel is, or how great your offer seems. Far too many websites disappear overnight — especially in the internet marketing niche. With so many stories of fraud and online scams — making sure people feel safe on your site is something you need to treat as a priority.

How can you make your business look legitimate?

Think about the sites you happily spend money on and the ones that you don’t. What’s different about them? Your site might only need a few simple tweaks to elevate it above all those spammy ones that nobody spends money on. Here are a few tips:

Provide detailed location information

People have far more faith in a business when they know where it’s located. Even a simple map and a phone number could do enough to elevate you above all those sites that are hard to even tell what country they’re in. Providing detailed location information will make people based near you even more likely to spend money — but even people thousands of miles away like to see where there money is going.

Write a compelling and personal “about us” section

Similarly to how people want to know where their money’s going — they want to know who it’s going to. Try not to be one of those nameless, faceless websites that people simply can’t have any faith in. Write something personal and compelling about you and your business. A mission statement. Include photos and other relevant information that switch people on to your personal brand.

Borrow a page from KlientBoost’s book and show the personal side of the team, show your visitors who is working on the products they are thinking of buying.

Source: KlientBoost

The “about us” page is in the top 5 pages that draw attention on any website so you really do not want to neglect it.

Provide a money-back guarantee

Providing a no-questions asked 30-day money-back guarantee is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. If people are still on the fence about whether to spend money with your business — a generous and comprehensive money-back guarantee could be enough to convince them.

Money-back guarantees have become such an important foundation of a successful business offer that they’re often now considered a necessity. That means if you haven’t got one — you could be putting visitors off.

Guarantees work because the vast majority of your customers should be happy with their product, so very few actually ask for a refund. The main importance of guarantees is to show people they can trust you and that YOU trust your products and the quality delivered.

You can find out more about different types of guarantees and how they could work for your business in this Kissmetrics article.

Provide testimonials

If your site hasn’t got a load of great testimonials displayed prominently already — you might be missing out on something. Testimonials are one of the best ways of increasing sales and making people excited about your products.

According to a research done by BrightLocal, customer feedback is one of the best ways of improving conversion rates:

Try picking out favorable reviews you’ve had about your business in the past. Use some of the best ones, and your sales should increase.

You could also try reaching out to former customers and asking them to write something compelling for your testimonial section. Many will be more than happy to do so. Your testimonials will be even more effective if they’re from other well-known brands or sites. You can offer sites a link in the testimonial section to give them an even better incentive for writing positively about your site.

Display security certificates

One thing people look for when they’re about to make a purchase is how reputable your security is. While they might believe you’re a legitimate business — they don’t want their payment information (or other valuable data) to get compromised because your site isn’t secure enough.

Make sure you’ve got the best security certificates and that they’re up-to-date. People have more faith in systems that they’ve seen before, like Norton. Here are some statistics from a Baymard study about which security certificates might be considered best:

Make sure your payment systems are efficient, well-known and secure

You also need to make sure your payment system is reputable and secure. It goes without saying that all payment pages should be behind a secure https connection. Try using a payment provider that people recognize and will have used before. Offer as many different payment options as possible. While PayPal is hugely important for your business, having independent credit card processing facilities could help in converting a different type of audience.

The next big shift in payment processing will be mobile payment as forecasts show that to grow tenfold by 2021. That’s only 4 years away, as hard to imagine as that is.

Get mentions and links from well-known authorities in your niche

Another way to increase trust and faith in your business is to get links and recommendations from relevant authorities in your industry. If you’ve worked with a big player before, try reaching out to them for a link exchange or offer them good quality content for free in return for a link.

Be active on social media, especially with complaints

Being active on social media is another effective way of improving the reputation of your business. It’s a great tool for growing your brand and communicating with existing customers (and hopefully getting a few new ones).

One way to really stand out from the crowd is by dealing positively with negative feedback. Far too many companies ignore bad reviews, but if you can go out of your way to address them while providing an honest and efficient solutions — it will say a lot about you and your business.

In fact, let’s take this opportunity here to go through some numbers from a study performed by BigCommerce and Square about social media and the influence it has on online shopping habits:

As social commerce continues to grow, these trends are indicative of the massive potential for retailers to connect with shoppers on their favorite platforms.

  • 30% of online shoppers say they would be likely to make a purchase from a social media network like Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat.
  • 20% of online shoppers would be likely to make a purchase from Facebook.
  • 17% of online shoppers would be likely to make a purchase from Pinterest.
  • 14% of online shoppers would be likely to make a purchase from Instagram.
  • 12% of online shoppers would be likely to make a purchase from Twitter.
  • 10% of online shoppers would be likely to make a purchase from Snapchat.
  • Men are more likely than women to make a purchase through Facebook (23% vs. 17%).
  • Men are more likely than women to make a purchase through Instagram (18% vs. 11%).
  • Men are more likely than women to make a purchase through Twitter (17% vs. 7%).
  • Men are more likely than women to make a purchase through Snapchat (15% vs. 6%).
  • 29% of online shoppers would be likely to follow a brand on Facebook.
  • 21% of online shoppers would be likely to follow a brand on Pinterest.
  • 21% of online shoppers would be likely to follow a brand on Instagram.
  • 18% of online shoppers would be likely to follow a brand on Twitter.
  • 13% of online shoppers would be likely to follow a brand on Snapchat.
  • 20% of online shoppers would purchase an item a friend has included on their Pinterest board.
  • 18% of shoppers would purchase an item a friend liked on Facebook.
  • 21% of online shoppers would purchase an item featured in a brand’s Facebook post.
  • 18% of online shoppers would purchase an item from a brand’s Pinterest board.
  • 51% of Millennials would be likely to make a purchase over social media.
  • 36% of Gen Xers would be likely to make a purchase over social media.
  • 14% of Baby Boomers would be likely to make a purchase over social media.
  • 3% of Seniors would be likely to make a purchase over social media.
  • 29% of Millennials and Gen Xers would likely make a purchase through Facebook if given the option.
  • 26% of Millennials and Gen Xers would likely make a purchase through Pinterest if given the option.

Source and many more stats like these: https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/ecommerce-trends/

Make sure you only publish high-quality, well written content

An easy way to lose customers is to have poorly written or produced content on your site. Creating high quality content should be the cornerstone of any successful online business. If your site is filled with poor quality information — how can you expect people to believe in your business enough to spend money there?

Hopefully these tips should be enough to start building a more reputable website that people feel more confident spending money on.

What about you? Let us know in the comments section what other techniques you’ve used to build trust with your visitors or what obstacles you’ve encountered along the way when it comes to trust.

Not sure how to implement all of these? Contact us for a no-obligation page evaluation to find out how we can help you reach your business goals. Just drop an email at [email protected] or hit the free evaluation button on our homepage.

By Andra Baragan

Andra Baragan is an experienced conversion optimization specialist and a certified ConversionXL Optimizer and Data Analyst. She has worked with over 80 online businesses and has brought over 6 figures in increased revenue for them. She is the founder of Ontrack Digital Agency.

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