12 crucial factors into making your website credible

"Attention web designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression!"

1: Good design

Good design isn't just the sake of beauty and beauty alone - eye candy. It's worked into us humans that we trust beautiful things and people more. If we compare the gorgeous site Montessorium to something like Lings Cars there is a huge difference in the quality of the design work, what one would you trust with your credit card?

2: Clear Contact Details

Don’t just have a mobile number - it looks like you are trading out of the back of a lorry
In some industries such as tradesmen - plumber it’s fine to heavily promote your mobile number, as its understandable you will be “out and about” but have a landline number too
State your location on a contact form
Google Map backs this up

3: Testimonials (with photos)

As we talked about last week Social Proof is very important
Having numerous as testimonials really helps with trust
Don’t only have testimonials however - have backing up photos!
PRO TIP: Build in strong objections into your testimonials

4: Genuine staff photos

Get someone who knows what they are doing with a camera and get some great shots of you and your staff
While you are at it - get a shot of the office and/or location

5 : Language

Having short paragraphs allows for scanning and easier reading of the content
Check spelling - 3 times over and again - goes without saying but if you content is riddled with typos - does it look trust worthy to you?
Few if no long complicated words
Not “WE” but “you”
See Writing for the web video

6: HttpS

As people get more used to the web, they are looking for security signs and https is almost a must when entering details such as credit cards
Backing this up and explicitly stating that it’s a secure page is not a bad idea

7: Show Prices

Many of the users will have come onto your site to find out how much a service of product costs. Save yourself a lot of work and give them what they want. It will save you a lot of work with time waster too. Unless you have a special sales technique why wouldn't you show your prices? Give a range of pricing if your service is dynamic / differing.

8: Show off your clients

It’s unlikely a small business will have worked with globally recognised brands but as your business grows its more than likely you will have recognised local companies as clients - show them!

Not only show them off but make a count of them “Trusted by 175 companies worldwide” - make even alone help make that sale.

9: Recent and updated content

If your the site in question has content dating back from 2009 as the latest entry what is your immediate thought? Something like are these guys still in business? AVOID. If you don’t have a blog, content can be fresh with a Twitter feed - think of it as your mini CMS. Update it at a absolute minimum of weekly, posting your local sports team results or news is reasonable start.

10: Seen elsewhere

If you have ads on multiple other sites and mediums it really helps build trust and authority in your marketplace. Whilst this other advertising may not bring in a positive ROI it can certainly lead to trust in a round about way.

If you have been featured in a popular well known publication, naturally mention this. As seen on TV - hell yes - publicise that! Hard to track this - but ask people why they bought from you... If they had heard about you other than your website.

11: Site Loading Speed

Your website loading speed is very important. Doubts will creep into your customers mind if its slow loading. If it’s really slow then people may never even see you at all - ever.

See other 2 videos (part 1) (part 2) and podcast with Tim Kadlec about site speed and performance. Luckily there are easy things you can do to greatly increase loading times.

12: Google Presence

As Google is seen as such a powerhouse now, it’s important you are easily found and seen heavily on there.Google reviews help - also use these on your website. Make sure you show in local and map search. You want multiple listings when someone searches for you.

What is good design?

Good design is about making good choices. You wouldn't therefore want to include all these displayable elements in one page. You would spread them around your pages to increase credibility and trust in your website.