They say never to judge a book by its cover but how many of your customers do you think judge your business based on your website? 75% of them.
Having a well designed website isn’t a vanity issue, it’s matter of cold-hard-economics and if your users don’t trust your website you can guarantee it will put a freeze on your company accounts.
So take on board my 4 reasons below and you’ll be sure to have a website your customers can trust.
Recommended reading: 5 Web Design Influencers to Follow (Plus One Bonus)
Complete disclosure
One of the absolute basics of having a website that inspires trust is being upfront with your visitors by having all the important details about your business and goods/service. These include things such as:
- Contact information
- Your registered charity/company number
- Company address
- Shipping costs
- Any tax charges/additional fees (for products)
By having complete upfront disclosure on your website, you’ll let your customers know you have nothing to hide and show yourself to be a business that can be trusted.
In your website design, make sure that logos and other prominent social proof features stand out. Always have terms & conditions pages, and create a knowledge base in the form of FAQs to reassure people they are dealing with a quality outfit.
Convincing content and visual components
You have just 6 seconds to grab the attention of your visitors and make a positive first impression. With so little time it needs to be clear to your users from the layout, appearance, theme, and colour scheme that your website is someplace they can rely on for quality content and data.
There are some simple and basic details that will ensure your website’s content and visual components inspire trust:
- Streamline your content
- Choose a colour that inspires the right emotional response from your users
- Select a font that’s easy to digest
- Incorporate visual content into your website to break up the text
- Use empty spaces to allow your users eyes to rest.
Your brand isn’t all about how you look and what you say, but if you don’t get the visual and content elements right, your users won’t look beneath the surface.
This is where care and attention to detail pays off — you want your website to look professional and convincing, so make sure that everything hangs together. At the same time, direct language and colloquialisms aren’t always a bad thing.
Look after your users’ data
In the aftermath of revelations about Facebook, it’s essential you demonstrate to your users that they can trust your website to look after their data. Web design can help build confidence in a big way.
For Australian companies this is now a case of convincing your European users your website follows GDPR guidelines, while European websites risk legal action if they don’t adhere to EU data legislation.
But getting your users to trust that your website can look after their data isn’t just a compliance matter, it’s essential to the long-term success of your business:
- If you want to set up targeted advertising campaigns you must incorporate user data
- If you want to save time by automating via easy email templates you need accurate user data (and permission to target them).
Include pop ups that tell your users your website is looking after their data and they’ll trust that they can give you their business. Fail to do this, and they will take their custom to companies they can trust.
Clear and simple site navigation
How many websites have you visited and departed in frustration because you’ve not been able to find what you want? Countless. If you don’t want your users to do the same to your website you have 3 seconds to convince them they can find what they want.
You can make sure that your website is clear and simple to navigate by following a few basic guidelines:
- Underlining all of your hyperlinks and no other text – your users subconsciously expect hyperlinks to be underlined and if other content is underlined it will confuse them. Make the most of internal links from a UX perspective
- Use one navigation bar – more than one will leave your users unsure of how to find what they want. If you have a second one, make its secondary nature clear
- Focus on the mobile experience – most people will be coming to your site on a mobile device, so you must ensure the experience is as streamlined as possible. Speed is becoming increasingly important.
Providing your users with an easy to understand and intuitive site experience will inspire them to trust that they can find what they want on your website, increasing your chances of keeping them there for longer than 3 seconds.
Conclusion
A well designed website isn’t just about showcasing the benefits of your brand. It’s also about convincing your users that your company can be trusted because if you can’t do this they’ll take their business elsewhere. So review your website and make sure you can tick off each of these 4 reasons to make sure your users can believe in your business.
About the Author:
Kayleigh Alexandra is a content writer for Micro Startups — a site dedicated to giving through growth hacking. Visit the blog for your latest dose of startup, entrepreneur, and charity insights from top experts around the globe, along with pointers on how to make sure your website is set up to benefit your users. Follow us on Twitter @getmicrostarted.