2010 October | LymeLightWebs.com

Oct 28

To continue on the topic of improving your website’s credibility, it seems only necessary to cover the topic of badges. You’re probably so used to seeing them that you hardly notice them anymore, and when you do, maybe you get warm fuzzies, knowing that someone is watching out for you.

While it’s always a good idea to beware the impostors who gain access to or replicate legitimate badges and falsely advertise commitment to your safety, it’s also good to know how you can get badges for your website—the right way.

Badges (or seals) help customers identify you immediately as a trusted source or a secure seller. Ultimately, the badges will drive more visitors to hit the “Buy” button: When given the choice between a site that seems secure and has reasonable pricing and a site that has been proven to be secure and has reasonable pricing, of course they’ll choose the latter.

Note that some of these fit in multiple categories, and they are merely categorized according to what seems most important to each badge provider.

Accreditation with the BBB is recommended for any business, but these ranking sites have their places, too. By displaying a badge from a third party that has objectively (automatically, no people involved) graded your site with a high mark based on numerous points, you’re telling visitors that you took the time to make your site the best that it can be.

Indeed, there are many more scanning/verification/accreditation/ranking badge sites, but these are some of the more common ones that I’ve been able to check out. I’ll post more as they come to my attention, and of course, if you’re looking for any information on those mentioned above, drop me an email or post a comment below! I’d love to hear your thoughts or questions regarding website security and trust =)

Oct 21

Building trust to increase your website’s credibility

Strong trust is crucial, not just between babies and parents, but between businesspeople and customers Building trust is crucial in business, and it becomes more difficult when the first line of communication is via the internet. As a customer, you can walk into a brick-and-mortar store, office or bank, look the representatives in the eye, listen to what they say—and how they say it—and decide almost instantly whether you feel the company is trustworthy. When shopping online, however, none of these benefits are present. If you’re more skeptical of online merchants and consultants, then why wouldn’t others be more skeptical of your online presence? Check out some of these tips, collected from all around (including my own experience), and try following this like a checklist.

There are more topics to cover when considering the trustworthiness of your website. Next week, I’ll cover website badges, and on November 4th, we’ll look at website rating engines. It’ll be a fun and particularly useful series, so stay tuned!

I wouldn’t expect a new company or one that is still growing to have hit all of these points—in fact, my own company hasn’t had the chance to catch up on all of it—but they should still be somewhere on the “to do” list:

Start a blog

Not only are corporate blogs appropriate for companies of all sizes these days, they are almost essential! Companies like GM, Google, Southwest, Nike, NFL, Giant Supermarket and many, many others have corporate blogs, and with good reason. With few ways for your website to stand out among hundreds of millions, finding your “voice” and “speaking” to your online audience will help them get a feel for who you are and how genuine you are. Blogging will also keep your site up to date, which builds some level of trust. As an added bonus, customers will know where to turn when rumors spread or even when your products are recalled. Instead of trying to run for cover, put the facts and any due apologies out in the open and in your newly found “voice” to reassure customers that they have every reason to stand by you.
Keep the readability to a moderate level

Visitors don’t want to feel overwhelmed or berated by a website (of all things), but they’ll be turned off by a site that reads like it was written for kiddies. Industry jargon is too confusing for those outside your industry, and you aren’t trying to sell to people who are already doing what you do! So keep the diction to more general terms, but also remember that using “bigger” words will often help with conciseness. LymeLightWebs.com reads at a high school level (rated by HubSpot, which I’ll cover soon), and I think it’s a great position to be in.
Make friends with other website editors and bloggers

When you’re comfortable with some of these editors and bloggers, ask them to write something about you on their site and link that piece to your site. It’s understandable that as an interior designer, you may not feel led to request a spot on another interior designer’s website, but go for the architects and real estate agents, as well as the landscapers, because they’re all wonderful complements to your field of work. When a person is confidently hiring a particular landscaper and they see that this landscaper respects you and recommends your work, you gain instant trust with that client.
Use clean navigation, an intuitive layout and quality design.

Loose, clumsy navigation makes it look like you’re trying to hide something. At the opposite extreme, confusing navigation that is all piled in the same spot looks unprofessional. Ensure that each link—from main page to storefront, from blog to portfolio to contact page—flows to the next and that there are no surprises. Similarly, anticipate the route that your visitors will take to make sure that each section is a continuation of the next (or indirectly tell them where to go). Finally, a quality website design enhances the professional look you’ve created through blogging and online references. This isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s about functionality and interactivity, too.
Post only your own content.

This may seem like a no-brainer, and sometimes the line between what is your content and what came from someone else is blurry. But a critical example of this is of a web design firm’s identical copy of an article from a developer resource website (excerpts shown below). The design firm breaks virtually every rule of building trust, including having a terrible website (paradoxical, I know), but in this case, they’ve stolen intellectual property and have given no credit to the original writer. Really, what’s the likelihood that two authors had the exact same idea for introductions to their articles? The “copycat” changed a few words here and there and removed one point that seemed redundant and one point that is wrongfully overlooked as an integral part of website building. Every industry has them – don’t be “those people.”