Online shoppers are savvy and showing them your site is trustworthy is important.

Customers know the threat of identity theft is real and want you to assure them they will have a safe shopping experience on your site.

Here are three ways to build a bond of trust between you, your website, and your customers.

Your Book Will be Judged by Its Cover

If a site doesn’t look professional, or if they can’t find a place to click and shop, they’re gone.

First impressions are everything, and when customers land on your site, they start browsing.

They immediately notice the layout and design. They read some of the text.

Take the time to ensure that your site has a consistent design, and that it is clear where users can click to proceed with their shopping experience.

Misspelled words damage credibility and your users may perceive constant misspellings as a lack of concern for your website and business. Make sure new pages are spell-checked before they go live.

If your store doesn’t look credible at all times, the shoppers may quickly leave.

Canned Goods, Aisle Three
Information architecture is key to your shoppers finding what they’re looking for. If they can’t find it in two or three clicks, they’ll go to a site where they can.

It’s important to have clear categories, and to map the appropriate products to these categories.

Don’t put pants in the shirts category.

Use descriptive categories. It is easier to find a Playstation 3 game if there is a category named PS3 Games, rather than burying the game in a category tree like Games > Video Games > PS3 Games.

Make sure that you have a site search available to your shoppers. Many will know exactly what they want and if they can’t find it in one or two searches, they’ll go where they can.

Post Security at All Exits
A secure site is imperative to succeed in the eCommerce world. Just being a secure site isn’t enough for customers though, you need to show them.

Posting security and payment gateway badges on websites is now a common practice. Many times you’ll see badges in the footer, but companies also place them “above the fold” on their pages or on pages where personal and payment information is entered.

It’s not uncommon to see Verisign, Comodo, Authorize.net, and Better Business Bureau logos on websites. These often contain a verification link, which provide users with statistics regarding the security certificate or membership of the Authority site.

Make sure to prominently display any security badges that you have access to so that any security concerns may be alleviated.

These are just some of the areas that cause potential trust problems on your site, and they are easy to change or fix.

What other trust concerns have you identified on your site or sites you have visited? Share your thoughts below.

Tags: e-commerce, security, trust

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 11:55 am and is filed under General E-commerce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.