Do you want to persuade people to buy or subscribe to your cause online? Good luck. Weary of a thousand “calls to action a day,” internet readers are an extremely skeptical bunch, According to the Nielsen Norman Group, a web page user designer group How Long do Users Stay on Web Pages studies done by Microsoft Research shows that a substantial percentage of people make up their minds to leave within the first 10 seconds of viewing a web page, and if, by chance, you are able to capture the reader during that critical first 10 seconds, there’s still a great chance they will leave in the next, subsequent 20 seconds.

Neil Patel, a respected expert on SEO.

It’s only when you can capture internet surfers for a full 30-seconds, that you stand a chance of keeping readers entrenched further. The Nielsen Norman Group fundamentally divides web pages as one of two types, good pages and bad pages. Bad pages get a swift click of the mouse in seconds, while good pages might be allocated a few minutes of the readers time. But what causes a reader to decide whether a web page is a good page or a bad? There are a number of factors, the chief being, “have you provided a proposition of value” within the first 10 seconds.

22 Ways Website Credibility Can Increase Visitor Conversion

The bottom line is that people are skeptical of almost every offer on the internet, as the online world is full of scams and half-truths. Your job, as a marketer, is to breakthrough that cloak of skepticism, in every way possible.

A small example of that is spelling. While an occasional typo won’t kill you, a prime example was a Mitt Romney app for president in 2012, with the words, “A better Americia – I’m with Mitt.” As one Twitter reader responded, “If you’re applying for a job and you misspell the name of the company you want to work for, you won’t get the job!”

There’s a lot you can do to increase your website credibility, and here are 22 of my favorites:

#22 Create a secure website (https/ssl). Creating a secure site is the easiest and best thing you can do to build trust. Showing the green lock ensures your visitors know that their interaction with your site is obfuscated from the prying eyes of hackers. Google also prefers sites with SSL certificates installed.

#21 Simple web design. Don’t confuse visitors with an aged website. Current design trends that work easily on the tablets and phones are imperative. White space is your friend. Don’t clog your site with too much of anything. Visitors can easily see when a website has been constructed professionally vs a homemade DYI. Structure is also important. If you can avoid it, don’t use giant menus or too many menu options. Too many links lead to too many choices and can be very frustrating to look at. Make it easy to find contact information.

#20 No Unnecessary Requirements If you take away anything from this article, you realize that visitors to your site are just itching to have an excuse not to continue reading your sight. Don’t clutter up your reputation by making a requirement to comment, chat, or post to your website that people register first. This just builds distrust and causes potential customers to click away from your site.

Build trust with your visitors.

#19 Do Include Pro and Con Reviews Companies such as Yelp, Amazon, and Google built their reputation by actively encouraging honest reviews. Taking Amazon for example, if a customer is interested in buying a portable generator for example, and one company has 12 reviews and a second company has 523, customers will read the top 10 reviews, and nine out of 10 times buy from the company that has hundreds of reviews. People trust what other customers say more than they trust your company.

#18 Use References Note how this article began with a reference to the Nielsen Norman Group, experts in the field of web usability. Its inclusion adds a touch of authenticity to the material, and although you don’t want to have your web page look like a college essay or academic paper, by backing up your assertions with facts, you strengthen the believability of your website.

#17 Include Professional Reviews Whenever possible, professional reviews from sites such as Consumer Reports and Buzzfeed, as well as social media influencers, can go a long way toward building believability in your product, particularly if it has a lot of technical components such as a computer.

#16 Case studies can build trust Selling a security product being used by major manufacturers? Write up a case study so that other potential customers can see how the product might meet their security needs at a glance.

#15 Third party validation Dell, IBM, or Microsoft or Intel are using your product. Write about it, and you piggyback off the compelling trustworthiness of those companies to boost reliability in your own, lesser-known product.

#14 Capitalize on press coverage Has your article or organization been featured in the press? The more prestigious the press coverage, the better, but even local news coverage can boost your dependability quotient with customers.

#13 Guest Posts on other web sites Many websites are dying for content, and if you write well, writing guest posts for other websites makes you an expert in your field, and boosts your familiarity with potential customers.

#12 Become familiar with Search Engine Optimization ( SEO ) It’s said that Google uses up to 200 factors in its algorithm to determine how it ranks a website, and according to Moz.com How Does Web Page Ranking Work in 2019? that includes major factors such as:

1. Whether a site is secured such as Https
2. Whether a website is mobile-friendly
3. The page-load of the site
4. The website quality
5. The backlinks of the site from credible sources.What is not disputable is that top slots grab over 1/3 of the all internet traffic, so if you aren’t SEO savvy, you might be customer poor.

#11 Great Design Does appearance count? You bet. Studies from Stanford’s Persuasion Technology Lab shows that website design is the number one factor in determining whether a company has a credible platform on the web, Reports from Google First Impressions of Websites are that people form a general perception of a website within 50 milliseconds, which is an incredibly short time, and British researchers have confirmed that 94 percent of first impressions are design-related.Little things like large typography, easy to navigate sites, contact pages, poor search capabilities, too much text, and a corporate feel can stifle many web pages.

#10 Where’s the video? CNN and other major news sites have long been adapting to the theory that video is king. Indeed, search engine experts overwhelmingly agree the Google favors websites that include quality video in its search algorithm, and studies have shown that a well-planted video can improve click-through rates as much as 150 percent or more. theShowing real people (not made-up models), putting up your companies camping tent in under a minute can go a long way to convincing people that their family too, could enjoy the ease and use of this tent.

#9 Avoid advertising like the plague If you’ve ever seen a website where and article is broken down into 10 parts, and you have to skip past 10 pages of adds to read it, you know how frustrating ads can be.And besides ads, there are those frustrating pop-ups allowing you to register, subscribe, or qualify for the latest discount. And don’t forget the ubiquitous favorite. the pop-up which allows the website or company to push important (to them) news to you as it becomes available. Seriously, try to minimize the impact of advertising on your site if you want to be taken earnestly.

#8 Be Proactive with Social Media Many small businesses don’t realize the impact of social media, and how bad reviews can lose you a ton of business. Say you own an auto body shop and a customer complains online with a local review site that you totally botched the repair on his one-year-old Cadillac. First of all, if you’re not monitoring local review sites for what people say about your business, then you vastly underestimate the negative power of social media. Secondly, respond rationally. Resist any temptation to lash out at a customer, and do your very best to contact them to make the situation right. At the same time, draft a careful response that:

1. Is timely, so the customer doesn’t write you off entirely
2. Addresses the reviewer by name to know they are important to you
3. Try to mention something positive in their review to indicate you have carefully read it.
4. Apologize for a misunderstanding of your companies policy
5. Do your best to offer some kind of rectification.Some customer’s negative reviews are beyond mending but do your best and your business will proffer. Also, spend time responding to positive reviews, as it builds continual loyalty with satisfied customers.

#7 Use Simple Language Even advanced experts in your field appreciate you are using simple rather than complex language. Just read many investment or computer consulting firm websites, and unless you’re an absolute expert, you don’t have a clue what the realistic benefits of their product are. They are buried in technical language.

#6 Make sure steps are easy to complete If your website does not have easy steps to complete, many people will drop out rather than struggling to figure it out.

#5 Make sure you have thorough Frequently Asked Questions Often times this is the part of your site that people go to first to avoid the fluff.
If they don’t feel you’ve answered their questions, they are gone.

#4 Make contact and customer service numbers easy find Nothing is more frustrating than having to search for 10 minutes to find the customer service or contact information. Customers will simply go elsewhere.

#3 Have an updated blog of articles Nothing says neglect like a blog that was last updated two years ago. If necessary, revamp old articles, but feature blogs only from the last year or earlier.

#2 Make sure there are no technical errors Pages that won’t load, and links that are broken are a sign of technical neglect. The minute your customer experiences this, they’ll move elsewhere.

#1 State your policies clearly Guarantees, discounts, refunds, and returns are among the many things customers which to know before buying. Be sure to state them clearly on your website if you want to have satisfied customers.

Online tools for reputation management

There are various ways you can build trust with your visitors and a great one is to make sure you remain vocal online in a timely manner. Respond to all feedback, negative and positive.

1. Google My Business (free). Every business with a website should have their business claimed on this platform and customized to fit their needs. This simply, is not an option.
2. Bing Places for Business (free)
3. Reputation Defender
4. Yelp. Popular Business listing tool with review management. Popular with Restaurants
5. Trip Advisor. Popular among business that are in the accommodations and restaurant field.
6. HomeAdvisor. Popular among services in the home improvement community.
7. Social Mention. Monitors social media platforms for instances of your business’s reputation with the world.
8. Lithium. Another social media management tool to monitor your klout and reputation online.
9. Reputology. Manage your online reviews all in one place. Supports businesses with multiple locations.

Be vigilant about enticing your customers

As you can see, there are many aspects to clearly communicating on the web, and this article is just the tip of the iceberg. A reasonable idea is to hire and expert to guide you through the SEO maze and see that your business manages to maximize their website presence.

Resources

• Why PR is Crucial to SEO and 11 ways to get coverage.
• Why Authentic Content Marketing Matters Now More Than Ever.
• Book on How to Dominate Social Media.
• 5 Way’s To Make Your Business Look Good Online.
• 7 Ranking Signals for 2019