29 Proven Ways to Build Trustworthy Websites

Trust is the basis for decision making in many contexts and it’s also the motivation for your consumers to build long-term affiliation with your brand.

But how does this translate into the ecommerce world?

Well, this may sound extreme but a recent study of trust and website design confirmed that you have a very small window of time to try and convince readers that your site is trustworthy.

To put it simply, you have 6 seconds to create the impression of trust when a potential customer navigates to your website or risk losing them forever.

“You have 6 seconds to create the impression of trust”

Therefore, it’s no surprise that trust is the key to success in ecommerce. Moreover, a lack of trust has been identified as one of the most formidable barriers for engaging in ecommerce.

It’s quite an obvious statement that most users won’t make a purchase from a website that they perceive as untrustworthy.

But what makes a website trustworthy?

Well, establishing trust on your website can be broken down into three main categories: Visual Design, Content Design, and Social-Que Design.

Visual Design

Visual design defines the graphic design and structural organisation of displayed information on your website to enhance trust in your website and brand.

As we delve into this aspect, we’ll explore 8 key components that contribute to establishing credibility and building confidence among your site visitors.

Professional Web Design

People tend to believe things that look better will work better. Even if they actually don’t.

In other words, users have a tendency to perceive attractive products as more usable.

This is a recognised and well-studied phenomenon known as the aesthetic-usability effect.

For some concrete statistics, a study found that 70% of people don’t trust badly designed websites. The research also demonstrates that customers believe that a company is ineffective if their website is unattractive.

“An unprofessional website is affecting your bottom line by up to 70%”

If you believe you’re suffering because of a poor website design there are a few options you can take. Either determine how to improve your website design and implement these yourself, or hire a freelancer or web design agency to improve your design.

Suitable Colour Scheme

The colour scheme you choose must be more than just some colours you like. They have to match your branding and the products and/or services you offer.

Colours have been well researched and are known to invoke emotions in people.

But why is it so important? Surely the product and the description will speak for themselves and the colours are just there to make it look pretty, right? Wrong.

Research has revealed that people judge a product in just 90 seconds and up to 90% of that judgement is made up of colour alone!

This by itself should make you stop and think about your colour choices, but it’s also been confirmed that colour identity has a positive impact on brand attribution, brand benefits and brand attitude. Which, in-turn, has a positive impact on brand loyalty.

“90% of how people judge a brand is based on colour alone”

All this is to say that what colour scheme to choose for your business is extremely important to building trust in your products and your brand.

Good, Legible Fonts

The font and typography you choose is the medium through which your content is conveyed and it’s important for this typography to be readable and match the tone of your product and brand.

Poorly thought-out contrast and font choice can kill your message before it’s even been read.

“Poor font choices will erode brand trust immediately”

This is important for building trust in your brand because if a user has difficulty reading your message then it raises serious doubts that your business is the right fit for them.

Objectively, there are no good and bad fonts. Just suitable and unsuitable fonts for each situation. It’s imperative you find the right fonts for your website and ensure they’re readable to everyone.

High Quality Images

As we’ve previously discussed, you only have 6 seconds to create the impression of trust on your website.

With this in mind, I’d like to draw your attention to another study which indicates that high quality images lead to greater user attention in the early stages of their interactions with your website.

“High quality images lead to greater user attention in early stages of website interaction”

Essentially, this means that images will grab your users attention in the initial stages of their visit. So if you only have 6 seconds to impress, you had better make sure you have high quality, professional and relevant images to your service, industry and product.

Good On-Site Search

Lets imagine you walk into a physical store and you’re looking for something specific.

It’s not immediately clear where this item is so you walk up to a salesperson and ask if they know where you can find it.

Their response: “I don’t know”. And nothing else.

Well, I don’t know about you, but my next action is probably to walk out of the store and go somewhere else to find what I’m looking for.

A bad onsite search functionality acts in this way, which is dreadful for building trust, customer service and makes you look unprofessional.

What this analogy is trying to provide is an insight into the importance of having a good onsite search functionality, especially if you have a large store with hundreds of products. When onsite search is done correctly it will keep users on your website, boost engagement and increase your conversions and sales. And who doesn’t want that?

Easy to Use Navigation

Website navigation is how users get around your site. Good website navigation makes this process easy and intuitive. Bad navigation hinders the user from getting around your website making them lose trust through frustration and leave your site.

The underlying reasons for having a good site navigation are similar to that mentioned above in having good onsite search functionality. It will increase time on site and improve user engagement.

“Bad navigation forces people to leave your website with frustration”

However, there’s also more to it than that, as your website navigation also has to please the search engine robots that crawl your site.

This may sound like a lot of work trying to please two different types of users at the same time, but the upside is that if done correctly you can improve your search engine rankings and increase conversions in one go.

Clear Microcopy

Microcopy is any brief bit of text that relates to the actions a user takes on your website in order to reduce friction.

It can speak to the motivation before an action is taken. It can be instructions that accompany the action. And it can be feedback after the user has taken the action.

What action or actions are we talking about here?

Literally any action on your website, from filling in a contact form, to typing in a search bar, to clicking a link, to anything else whatsoever.

“Clear microcopy removes friction and alleviates customer concerns”

Microcopy drives usability and it does this through a number of ways. It:

• Alleviates user worries
• Provides helpful error messages
• Helps provide context to user actions

And when you look at it this way it’s obvious why it’s so closely linked to building trust with your customers as it makes your website a lot more user friendly and quells any worries they may have.

No Technical Problems

Trust is very difficult to build and can be lost in an instant, even over something small.

If your website is riddled with technical problems, or even just has one issue, you’re preventing your potential customers from trusting your website and business.

This is even true for websites that have already gained the trust of their users.

A study found that when users encountered technical problems for sites they already trusted, only 29% had continued loyalty.

Split loyalty = found alternative site to use in conjunction

That’s a staggering loss considering these users had previously trusted the site. Now consider what percentage of customers would “remain” loyal for a website they’ve never been to before.

I would put money on that it’s close to 0% or precisely none at all.

“Only 29% of customer will remain loyal to a website that has technical problems”

There are several common technical problems websites have that erode trust and usability and they need to be addressed to build trust and ensure continued loyalty to your website and brand.

Social Cue Design

Social Cue Design relates to embedding social and interpersonal cues such as social presence and face-to-face interactions into the website via different media.

There are 9 aspects of social cue design that should be implemented on your website that will convey you’re trustworthy to potential customers and clients.

Staff Photo’s & Bio’s

Images of yourself and your employees along with brief bio’s for each individual will allow customers to see that you’re not a faceless organisation.

It’s intrinsic in human nature that humans are a social species, therefore the old adage “People buy from people” has some truth to it.

A web page with staff photos and bios that match the tone of your company and the industry you serve allows consumers to build trust in your company.

However, in the digital world you’ll still need to make this web page look great so be sure to check out examples of great website bio pages and what makes a great bio page.

Easy Access to Customer Service

Potential customers need to be able to access your customer service easily and in a reasonable time frame. The time frame is impacted by the size of the purchase.

The lower the cost, the quicker the response is required to prevent loss of a customer.

If your customer service is incredibly difficult to find, convoluted or non-existent it will not only break down trust in your company but it also has an affect on your bottom line!

A customer service expectations survey from 2018 concluded that 68% of consumers will actually pay more for products and services from a company with strong customer service.

“68% of consumers will pay more for good customer service”

If that isn’t incentive to provide good customer service, I don’t know what is.

Instant Messaging / Chat Option

A review conducted by LTVplus found that 79% of businesses claim that offering live chat features has had a positive impact on customer loyalty.

Combine this with the fact Millennials and younger generations prefer to communicate via text, it’s easy to see why live chat usage is on the rise, with 41% of customers preferring this method of contact vs others.

“41% of customers prefer live chat as their main contact method”

Without a good instant messaging and chat functionality you’re essentially alienating 41% of your potential customers.

Social Presence (Social Media)

Having a social presence speaks to the same benefits as your staff photos and bios. Being engaged on social media shows consumers that you’re not a faceless company and inspires trust.

A report by Edelman confirms that sharing relevant and high-quality social content contributes to building brand trust and authenticity.

Not only that, it’s an additional vehicle for you to communicate thought leadership within your industry and engage with customers in a more conversational setting.

“Sharing relevant and high-quality social content builds trust and authenticity”

Keep in mind the following points to share in order to create great social content that will boost trust in your brand:

• Behind-the-scenes snippets
• Real customer experiences
• Your brand values and mission
• Openly responding to criticism and feedback

Testimonials

You can be forgiven for thinking testimonials and reviews are the same thing but they actually have different focusses.

Testimonials are highly-specific, positive experiences about a product or service you offer. Whilst reviews offer general feedback and are more informative.

Think about when movies are released. They show 5 star testimonials from media outlets to convince you to watch, whilst reviews on rotten tomatoes or IMDb, for example, inform you generally of what that person thought of the movie.

“Testimonials are exceptionally persuasive when highly-specific”

A conversion expert performed a test on a landing page and including testimonials in a prominent location on his webpage increased conversions by 65%!

In order to gather useful testimonials you will need to proactively solicit them from customers who have had a great experience and interview them. Top tip: ask them to be as specific as possible, figures can be extremely persuasive.

Reviews

97% of consumers read product reviews before making a purchase. And when a customers interact with reviews on websites, they’re 120.3% more likely to purchase.

These two stats alone provide a clear reasoning that reviews have a massive impact on consumer trust of your product or services.

But the second stat also make it certain that reviews should be prominent and easy to locate on your website.

"Consumers who interact with reviews are 120% more likely to purchase"

If you have a newer website which hasn’t built up much trust already, then it’s highly suggested that you integrate review widgets from wherever you gather your reviews initially, such as Google or TrustPilot.

Reviews from Influencers

Influencer reviews are like normal reviews on steroids. Soliciting reviews from appropriate influencers acts in a similar way to getting a recommendation from a friend.

In fact, approximately 49% of consumers make their purchasing decision based on recommendations from influencers.

The key is to understand your target market and find influencers whose following overlaps with your target. For example, it would be nonsensical to solicit a review from a beauty influencer if you product is garden fence paint.

"49% of consumers make purchasing decisions based on influencer recommendations"

Influencer reviews, when done correctly, will not only increase trust in your brand but also help you reach a wider and relevant audience quickly.

Professional Product Reviews

Not every company or product lends itself to professional review, but it’s worth mentioning all the same as they build a massive amount of trust.

Professional reviews are conducted by experts for reputable publications which naturally mean they hold a lot of weight.

Think of the likes of Which? or Consumer Reports.

If you manage to get your product/s professionally reviewed you will receive a trust badge stating the award you got from the publication, instantly indicating your products are great for potential customers.

Press Articles (Media Logos)

Displaying the logo’s of media outlets you’ve been featured in conveys trust to potential customers due to third-party validation. Media logo’s suggest that you business has been vetted and endorsed by reputable sources.

They also have the effect of grabbing the users attention and communicating the reach of your brand imparting a sense of importance.

This type of social proof gives your brand a more established and well-known feel which enhances trust in your company.

It’s also suggested that you add a page to your website which has all the links to different press articles you’ve been featured in so it doesn’t appear like you’ve simply added logo’s to your website in order to deceive consumers.

Content Design

Content Design refers to informational components that can be included on your website. These can textual, graphical or otherwise.

There are 12 components that make up this section and, thankfully, these items are much simpler to implement than the previous sections.

Brand Promoting Info

Brand promoting info refers to the content that that supports your brand. This includes your logo, any slogans, main selling points, or anything else that is synonymous with your brand.

This info should be seen on every page of your website to ensure there’s no confusion from consumers first and foremost.

Beyond that it allows customers to trust your website by building a brand identity and value proposition early and efficiently.

Company Profile

A company profile is a professional intro to your brand, services, products and website.

Crafting a great company profile and sharing this with your consumers builds trust by providing transparency, showcasing your company values, history and mission and presenting a clear picture of what your brand stand for.

"80% of consumers are more likely to purchase when their values align with a brand"

When brand values match that of the customer it fosters a strong sense of loyalty, with 80% of consumers more likely to purchase from brands whose value align to their own.

Contact Info & Physical Address

Your contact details, whether that’s, phone numbers, contact forms, live chat functionality, should be in an easy to find location on your website along with any physical addresses you might have.

A study found that sharing this information showed and increase in consumer trust of your company, but also concluded that they are more likely to share their own personal information in return.

This is extremely useful for any conversions, whether that’s online purchases, requesting callbacks, or filling in contact forms.

Useful Content

Content that is authoritative and shows thought leadership is highly trusted by users. To meet this criteria your content should be well-researched, precise and impartial.

"48% of companies acquire business directly because of their content"

Not only that, websites with authority content also tend to rank higher in search engines allowing a wider reach of potential customers.

The New York Times reported that 48% of companies awarded business to companies that engaged in thought leadership content.

External Links (Sources)

As part of creating useful content, it’s also important that any facts or data that are used are correctly sourced.

More than that, it’s important to review and validate these sources, preferably using industry experts, because authority content is bolstered by sources your readers will recognise and trust.

"Well reserached and sourced content builds industry expertise and trust"

By linking directly to these sources, whether your readers click them or not, show that you are open with the information you have researched allowing consumers to trust your content further and establish yourself as a trustworthy brand.

Up to Date Blog / News Page

Keeping you blog or news page up to date and relevant is vital in remaining interesting to your target audience. Consistency and relevance are key.

By keeping these key points in mind you’re showing you consumers that you are an active member of your industry, showing your expertise in the area and building brand trust.

This goes beyond adding new posts and should also include a periodic review of your existing posts to ensure the content you’ve written is not outdated or no longer correct.

Client Case Studies & Logos

A client case study, or customer success story, goes one step further than a testimonial. It is an in-depth review of a customer success story clearly articulating their problem, your solution and how that solution impacted them.

A good client case study shows that you don’t just talk the talk, but you walk the walk as well. It allows prospective clients to see real life examples of how you’ve helped previous clients and how you can potentially help them as well.

They add credibility to your brand, making it easier to close future deals and also gives you a great repository of quotes you can use in future marketing.

Product & Price Info

Nothing puts consumers off more than hiding the pricing of your products or services. That doesn’t mean that you need to include prices on every page of your website, but they should be easy to find.

By hiding your prices you may end up with a higher visit to lead ratio, but converting these leads into purchases won’t increase as they’re less qualified. In fact, it will likely decrease as a result of disgruntled consumers leaving you site and not calling.

"Hiding your prices reduces conversions and wastes your time"

Your product info is also incredibly important in building trust. On one hand, too little info and potential customers will question if the product/service is credible. On the other, too much info and it has been shown to overwhelm consumers and not increase conversions.

Consumers scrutinise the details as a critical factor in their decision-making process, so it’s vitally important to create great product information.

Good Grammar & Minimised Jargon

So you’ve spelt a couple of words incorrectly, it can’t be that bad can it?

Well, a Global Lingo survey reported on by Real Business has shown that poor grammar and spelling mistakes cause 59% of people to no engage with a company.

"59% of users won't engage when a website has spelling mistakes"

This clearly shows the impact of grammar on trust in your business, and the same goes for jargon.

There are generally 3 main reasons companies use jargon:

• To sound professional
• Competitors use jargon
• Complex subject matter

But these reasons are misconceptions and hinder understanding of your brand, and people don’t trust what they don’t understand. Not only that, it’s perceived as dishonest.

Clear Policies, Guarantees & Warranties

Guarantees and warranties build trust in a brand for obvious reasons but they also improve conversion rates for newcomers to an industry by directly addressing a consumer concern in the decision-making process.

"Clear guarantees and waranties increases conversions by 29%"

Understanding that these are selling points and making them clear and accessible to visitors has been shown to increase conversions by 26%.

Policies takes into account returns and refunds, which also speak to the same decision-making process and ties in quite well when we previously mentioned contact info. Making these three points clear and obvious at the time of purchase will remove doubts, increase trust and improve conversions.

Helpful FAQ’s

The purpose of a frequently asked questions section is in the name: they’re supposed to answer questions that are commonly asked by potential customers.

These questions can arise either because you’ve not covered them in your content, or because the consumer hasn’t read every word you’ve written (which is actually very standard). The benefit of an FAQ section is that the questions are short and concise, meaning they have a much higher chance of being read.

FAQ sections jump out at the reader, alleviate their concerns quickly and reduce friction in their decision to purchase.

Top tip: If you’re a brand new company, show your product or landing page to someone you know and take note of the questions they ask you about your product or service and answer those.

Trust Seals & Awards

Trust seals, or trust badges, highlight specific security or accountability measures that you’ve put in place to protect the consumer, their information and their payment details.

A study by Baymard found that 19% of consumers who abandoned checkout stated they didn’t trust the site with their card information.

"19% of consumers will abandon their cart due to a lack of trust"

Showing trust badges at the time of purchase or conversion will alleviate the users concerns and reduce the number of lost conversions.

Conclusion

A trustworthy website is essential in providing consumers with confidence, security and reliable information.

With only 6 seconds to convince users of this or risk losing them forever, the 29 components discussed in this article give a clear outline of the steps that needs to be taken to mitigate this risk.

By implementing each of these components you improve the customer experience in several ways, which provides you with a competitive edge over your rivals.

This will lead to your brand becoming more reputable and increase positive word of mouth marketing. But ultimately entice your visitors to stay on your website, convert or buy something, and become returning customers.