At the center of every good relationship is one key component: trust. If you don’t have trust, how are you going to develop a loyal relationship and encourage conversions from your website?
Earning trust is vital to the success of your business. If consumers don’t trust your brand, they’re not going to buy your service or product. So, how can you ensure that your website gives off a trustworthy feel? There are many approaches, so let’s take a look at some of the most effective techniques to use…
Constantly update your website
There is only one place to begin, and this is with updating your website regularly. What worked last year is not going to work this year. Your website needs to be fresh. This means new content and continual improvements in terms of user experience and security.
If your website looks out-of-date and features old content, this creates a distinct lack of trust between consumers and your brand. They won’t want to engage and so you will really struggle to secure conversions.
Make it easy for visitors to contact you
Think about it: if you were to visit a website and you could not find any contact information, would you trust the company behind the site? It’s unlikely.
It is important to make sure that your contact information is prominent and up-to-date. You should also provide several different methods of communication, from your telephone number to live chat.
Display social proof
Social proof is a theory, which is based on the fact that we, as humans, are influenced by what other people do and say. This means that if we see someone else engaging with a product, we’re going to be more inclined to do so.
This is why you need to display social proof. There are so many ways you can incorporate this into your website; from customer review websites to social media counters. All of this comes together to validate your website and show that other people have a positive opinion of your brand.
Use real pictures
Aside from the points that have already been mentioned, it is a good idea to use real photographs rather than using stock photos.
While there are some great websites out there for stock photography, the trouble is that everyone is using them. If you have the same photos on your site as thousands of other websites, you’re going to weaken your brand identity, and this will cause customers to become confused about your brand identity. This, in turn, makes it very hard to build trust.
Choose a web host with care
A lot of people do not realize that their choice of web host has an impact on how customers view their brand. However, your host is going to have a huge influence on the performance of your website, from the speed of it to the security in place. This is why you need to choose a quality host like Hostinger, so you can be sure that your website will perform effectively.
Display trust seals
Another way to make your site appear more trustworthy is to display trust seals. A trust seal is an icon or logo that instills confidence in the visitors of a website.
Although there are some exceptions, the vast majority of these trust seals are provided by cybersecurity businesses. In order to display these seals legally, you must have purchased a cybersecurity product from the company.
Some of the most widely recognized trust seals for sites include BuySafe, Trust Guard, McAfee Secure, Shopify Secure, and SiteLock.
Use HTTPS
Finally, it is also important to make sure you encrypt your website with the HTTPS protocol. The vast majority of sites on the web have made this switch. If you have not already, you are only going to get left behind.
HTTPS refers to the manner in which data is exchanged between the visitors of your website and your website.
The key difference between HTTPS and HTTP is that the former will encrypt data, which means it turns your data into a code that is illegible so that hackers are unable to read it. A lot of Internet users today will only enter HTTPS websites.
So there you have it: the complete guide to creating a trustworthy website. If you follow the steps that have been presented above, you can go a long way to creating a website that makes your potential customers feel safe and trust your brand.
Author bio – Kerry is an experienced content writer, with a First Class Hons Degree in Multimedia Journalism. She currently works for UK Web Host Review, providing content on SEO, web hosting, web performance, UX, web security, web design, and much more.
