Editor’s note: This a guest by Arthur who is a Conversion Rate Specialist at AB Tasty
One of the most effective ways to convert visitors into customers, and retain them as regular customers, is to earn their trust. When customers trust you, your sales will grow – and that’s true for brick and mortar shops as well as digital businesses.
There are many things you can do on your e-commerce website to increase visitors’ trust and boost your conversion rate. In this article we will give you ideas about what things could lead to a significant increase in trust – and a better conversion rate.
Trust is an important thing during the whole sales process: before, during and after the sale. Confidence in e-commerce environment (pre-transaction), trust in merchant (transaction), trust in after-sales (post transaction), and trust in protection of digital assets (after-sale) are the main components of e-confidence.
Here are the ways in which these components should be incorporated into your online presence to improve conversion rate.
1. Make It Professional
You don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression. People often evaluate a site by visual design alone, and bounce quickly if they aren’t satisfied with what they see. Having a functional website without errors of all types is necessary, but websites with great aesthetic and design empower visitors to do more, to do what you want them to do and increase the perceived value.
A/B testing tools like AB Tasty provide insights on how visitors interact with your website and what type of design works the best. Remember that the best practices are not always the universal truth: you should test to be sure you make the right choice, adapted to your industry, your company and your visitors’ requirements. A design is good when it serves your business goals, not just when it looks beautiful.
When designing and maintaining your website, pay attention to:
- Speed and availability
- Ease of use
- Website layout, typography, images
- Consistency issues
- Spelling errors
- Broken links
Check out this post for more details on how to speed up your e-commerce website.
2. Make It Easy to Check Your Identity
People want to know who you are and why are you doing what you are doing (in addition to making a profit). What does your brand stand for? If they like you, you’re on the good way to get a conversion. This is why “About” page is important – try to humanise the company and show visitors the real people and organisation behind the website.
Find a way to build trust through images or text. You could write a blog post about the latest teambuilding you had, or have a page where you post employee photos and bios.
Keep in mind that regularly updated or reviewed websites are given more credibility by visitors. If your website has a blog or a news section, update them regularly with new content. Nothing says “out of business” like a three months old last news or an abandoned blog/social network.
3. Make It Easy to Contact You
Instant availability is a great way to boost confidence in your business. Put your direct phone number in the header of the website so visitors will see they can easily contact you if needed. Clear contact information – phone number, physical address and email address – is a good step towards gaining the trust of visitors. Also, a “Contact” page is indispensable.
Having a live chat on a website might be useful to engage people in a discussion. There are lots of tools on the market, all promising an increase of the conversion rate (Intercom, Olark, Zopim…). Using a testing tool, you’re able to test them quickly and ensure the promise is true (or that you are using them correctly!).
4. Highlight Your Authority
For most small and medium sized businesses, third-party certification or reference can be a great help to gaining customers’ trust. Adding social proof using customer reviews, testimonials or case studies will surely help to increase conversion rates. The visitor won’t doubt them since they are external. Many product reviews systems are recognised and trusted by consumers such as eKomi and TrustPilot.
Social networks can also highlight your website’s authority: having an active community on Facebook or Instagram sharing their experience with your product in pictures will definitely serve to build trust in your brand.
Testimonials, citations and articles in well-known media will also improve your website’s credibility.
5. Relieve Visitors From Security Fears
Every visitor fears personal data will be stolen, reused or sold – especially when it comes to payment data. Highlight your credibility with security seal and business badges. Having “trust” seals will nearly always grow conversion rate.
Create security policy and privacy statement, and make them visible on your website and during the checkout process. Integrate only the best and trustworthy payment methods that will allow you to design a checkout experience the way you like it for higher conversions while keeping up a secure payment system.
Once again you can opt for different systems, including 3-D secure or not… Think about how many messages you want to display to increase trust without distracting visitors from adding more products to the basket. These choices might be easier if tested! For example, while 3-D secure substantially reduces fraud, it may decrease conversion rate depending on your industry, as recalled in this article.
6. Have Guarantee, Return and Exchange Policies (After-Sale)
Trust after sale is also important. You need to show your care about the visitor, even after the purchase. Offering a guarantee, return and exchange policies gives customers more confidence in you and your product and generally increases conversion rates.
This will also show visitors that you have faith in your own product. Nothing says “we know you’ll keep it and be satisfied so we can afford to offer the return costs” like generous after-sale policies.
Emphasise that you abide by the law, and if you add extra legal services to your website, display them clearly and understandably, together with after-sale policies. They take an important part in the checkout process and should be visible to everyone.
Conclusion
Once tested, these components and elements will surely perform different from one segment to another. For instance, a visitor who already made a purchase will have more confidence in the company than the first time visitor to your website – which makes all the trust elements less relevant for the returning customer than for the new visitor. Personalising the user experience by delivering custom messages to each segment is the next step towards successful conversion rate optimisation.
About the author
Arthur is Conversion Rate Specialist at AB Tasty. Designed for e-commerce websites as well as media publishers and lead generation players, AB Tasty helps them to increase their sales and conversion rates. Our solution makes testing and personalisation accessible to all marketers, whatever their technical knowledge.
