How To Reassure Visitors That My Website is Secure and Trustworthy?

So, you've got your products, your website looks great, your ecommerce checkout process is finally fine tuned, your forms are tested, your email confirmation workflow is flawless.

The increasing prevalence of phishing scams, malware, and just plain shlocky customer service makes consumers more wary with their clicks than ever before – which means that trust indicators on your website are more important than ever before. Here are few things you can do to soothe your potential customers’ fears and make them more likely to follow through and buy your products online.

• Make it Personal

  People don’t trust pages or websites. They trust people. So it’s crucial that your website has a human factor. One way or another, you want to present your prospective customers with faces and names. Use an about us page to present not just information about your company, but a message from your company’s Founder or President (with an accompanying photo, of course) or a Meet Our Team section (with photos and names) - or both.

• Look Professional

  Show that you’re a "real" company with all the things a real company would have, such as an easy way to contact the business (a fully developed contact page, with an address and phone number, not just an email form) and customer service (a fully developed customer service section on your website, including policy, terms/conditions and a FAQs section).

• Show that Others Trust You

  Testimonials, particularly small bite-sized ones, are a great way to quickly show that you have a large customer base, all of which love your business and what you’ve done for them. Remember, the name of the game is too show your customers only what matters, so focus on quotes that reflect your key benefits.

• Prove That Your Website is Secure

  Today's online shoppers are savvy people, trained to look for the additional "s" in their browser address bars, https rather than http, and padlock symbols that tells them that a website is secured – an absolute necessity for an ecommerce website.

  For websites that either don't process transactions at all or do so via the phone or a third-party provider such as PayPal, a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Certificate is a good way to demonstrate credibility and trustworthiness. Extended Validation SSL Certificates are a great way to prove to customer that the business has been throughly vetted, and is safe to do business with.