When users open a website, their trust verdict will be built in just a few seconds. Getting that trust is vital for making the visitor keep browsing the online store... But the effort must be even more cautious if you want them to stay.
Advice on what makes a website credible isn’t a simple recommendation, but a responsibility that the brand assumes towards the market and its customers. It’s the definitive welcome to those who had a half-formed idea about a brand or product, and the way to convince indecisive users. More and more e-commerce pages are hidden behind a mask of credibility, very easy to falsify. Making your website totally truthful is the best investment against price competition and for your future projection.
BJ Fogg, a behavioral scientist at Stanford University, highlights four different types of website credibility checker:
Achieving credibility in these four areas is essential to save your clients the time dedicated to investigate your brand before buying any product. And to win it, follow these 3 golden rules as a website credibility checklist.
The gateway of what makes a website credible is a minimalist and modern design, with no badly designed elements or copied and pasted templates.
Avoid visual harassment through ads, pop-up or flickering CTAs. Clients don’t need to read that you are the best or the cheapest: they will not believe you anyway, and nobody likes to feel like a piece in a crowded market, but as the visitor of an exquisite Harrod’s counter.
The content of your website must be free of typos: spelling and grammar errors affect the credibility of any e-commerce website. Also, product data must be uniform in all sales channels, and all the product pages must show the same type of updated information in each category: equip yourself with a Product Information Management system (PIM) to automate this basic task for website credibility.
Other elements that must be included without exception in a website credibility checklist:
Although it may seem a bit cheesy, what makes a website credible is the emotional story, told through people from the company and not from paid influencers.
Tell how is your team, why its members are part of it and why you devote yourself to your niche. The most effective resources are case studies with clients, taking a look back to your first products or services, making clear the purposes and objectives of the company and participating in charitable or environmental campaigns. A brand must demonstrate through its website that it hasn’t born to sell anonymously, but to build a relationship with its products, the market, the client and the planet.
For this purpose, social media is also useful to share the daily life of the team and office through pics and videos. Tell when new members come in and share your presence in private and public events or activities. Respond to users' doubts publicly and take part in debates to have a presence in your industry or niche, for example through guest posts on other websites with good credibility.
And we can’t forget the fourth golden rule, which stands out above all others: do what you do and sell what you sell honestly. Sooner rather than later, the main website credibility checker would be the prestige that you have gained through a great customer service, tailored product content and a high quality tradition.