Your business’s website is often your customer’s first point of contact with your brand and is the central hub for all your digital marketing activities and revenue if you are an e-commerce organization. An average website visitor usually spends approximately 15 seconds on your website before making an opinion about how credible your website is. Your website needs to persuade any visitor to spend a minimum of 30 seconds to develop trust, which in turn generates more leads, sells more products, and attracts more visitors.
Your website’s ranking is also based on credibility since Google and other search engines look for it when assessing the rank to display relevant websites to its users.
In research by Stanford on Web Credibility, researchers tried to understand how computers can change what people think and do. The research also gave insight into factors that impact people’s belief in the content they find on the web and strategies that users employ to evaluate the credibility of different online sources. Additionally, the research delves into the contextual and design factors that influence these assessments and strategies, based on which we have put together 11 guidelines that make your website credible.
1. Have accurate and verifiable information on your site
Visitors can be skeptical of the information you share on your website unless, of course, they find a way to verify what you have put up. Providing evidence through citations, references, source material , etc. allows visitors to trust you more. There are many trust seals across the web that can be used to borrow their credibility as your own. Logos or seals from independent and trustworthy authorities such as Web of Trust, GoDaddy Site Seal, Norton Secured, PayPal Verified, BBB Accredited Business, and HTTPS.
2. Show that there is a real organization behind your site
Your website visitor should get an overview of the people and values that make up your organization. People want to know your business’s story and see real people who run the business.
- Let visitors know who has built this company and the credentials of the team.
- A mention of your client/customer list and the industries you serve allows visitors to understand the impact you are creating thereby making it more likely to trust your brand.
3. Highlight your expertise in the content you produce
Your website visitors are always on the lookout for expert-level content that is fresh, relevant, and valuable. The content should not be limited to just your services or product features. You should have thought leadership content as well to share your expertise and ideas to solve real-world business problems.
4. Make it easy to contact you
A clear point of contact enables visitors to feel confident about depending on you when needed, thereby adding to your site’s credibility. A clear mention of phone numbers, physical addresses, email addresses, live chat links, social media profiles, and hours of operation asserts transparency at your end and makes your company look legitimate and experienced.
5. Design your site so it looks professional
A lot of times people do not take the time to go through the content of your website and instead first evaluate it by visual design alone. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the page layout, consistency, typography, images , etc. The visuals of your website should be designed keeping in mind the purpose of your business. The images on your website should be of excellent quality and relevant to the product/service and/or target audience. A customer’s first impression of your website is made in the first 50 milliseconds. Around 50% of the people who participated in Stanford’s Persuasion Technology Lab research share that their instinct to trust a website is entirely emotional and is dependent on consistency, aesthetics, and visuals.
6. Make your site easy to use
According to the research, a website wins credibility points by being both easy to use and useful. Your website should not be just about the design instead, it should focus on what value you can add in a simple and efficient manner.
- Clarity always trumps persuasion. It can be achieved by being specific, actionable, and relevant. Another way of ensuring clarity is to make sure your text fonts are large and legible. Research shows that larger fonts and legible typography improve reading speed and aid in comprehending texts easily.
- If a visitor needs to put a lot of cognitive load or physical effort to navigate through your website, chances are he/she will exit the page.
- Visitors expect your navigation to be organized such that it is easy for them to find what they are looking for.
7. Your site should be glitch-free
It is needless to say that any form of error on your website will decrease visitor confidence. Not only are technical glitches frustrating for users, but broken links, missing pages, slow web pages , and development bugs also impact your ranking on search engines.
8. Update your site’s content often
Being consistent in creating content can improve your site’s credibility too. An active and maintained website that has been recently updated or reviewed shows you are consistent and creates a good reputation with your visitors. Another advantage is that visitors would check your website frequently to acquaint themselves with fresh content.
9. Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers)
Extra is not always good. Particularly when it comes to your website, anything that intrudes on your visitor’s thought process while going through your content can be annoying. Too many adverts make your site look unprofessional, and annoy your visitors since it is pushy interruptions and they are everywhere. Many times, adverts either block the content visitors have come to see or slow download speed. Aesthetically, this makes your website look “cheap” and “spammy.” If you cannot completely avoid adverts, try to keep them to a minimum, avoid pop-up ads and clearly distinguish the sponsored content from your own.
10. Refrain from asking for unnecessary information
Forcing customers to register even before they can browse through your website, post a comment, initiate a live chat, or purchase your product decreases trust. If you can do with customers’ email, refrain from asking their phone number and name to avoid resistance and increase trust. It is wise to mention what happens to the information you do collect, if you intend to share it with third parties or not.
11. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem
As much as visual aids matter, one cannot ignore the impact of good grammar and spelling on a prospective customer visiting a website. It is always recommended to proofread your website copy to make sure there are no typos or grammatical errors. Bad Grammar hurts your credibility and makes it confusing for people to understand your content. Sites like Grammarly can be of help to keep your grammar in check.
In conclusion, if these credibility factors are important to your target visitors, they should be important to you. You could even ask your visitors for their input to improve your website’s credibility further.
At Step2Growth we help organizations make sure that their website is credible by following industry rules and best practices. Contact us today if need to get a credible website created!
