Website Credibility
Instilling Credibility in Your Website
If the client is going to open their wallet and give you their credit card
information, they are going to have to feel a strong level of trust
in your business. Certainly there are different degrees of professionalism,
based on your target audience. However, there are not varying degrees
of trust.
When it comes to giving you private information, the potential clients either trust you or they don't.
When you are trying to get an Internet business off the ground,
portraying a high level of professionalism, is absolutely vital to the
credibility of your website.
Stanford University has compiled a list of 10 guidelines for
building website credibility. These guidelines are based on three years of
research that included more than 4,500 people. If you are serious about building
a solid online business, I highly recommend taking the time to implement the methods outlined in these guidelines.
Techniques to Instill Website Credibility
- Contact Information
- Display Privacy Policy
- Display Familiar Logos
- Professional Web Design
- Display Professional Photos
Contact Information
How easy is it for me to find your contact information? Do you provide
more than an email address? If the only contact information I have
for you is an email address, it is very unlikely that I will give
you credit card information.
This is not the time to use your free yahoo email address or
a post office address. For clients to feel that you are a LEGITIMATE
business, they want to know:
- Name
- Phone number
- A physical address
- A business email address
Many small business owners that are new to the Internet will
tell me that they are not entirely sure they want to make the above
information available on the Internet. Please understand that ANYONE
can find this information out about you, in a matter of seconds,
without you publishing it on your website.
It all comes back to making a decision on how you want potential
clients to view your business. I highly recommend placing your Company
name, physical address, and phone number on every page of your site.
Your personal name should be available on both the contact page
and the “about us” page.
Privacy and Credibility
Domain registrars now offer domain privacy options. This service
blocks access to your name and contact information. I do NOT recommend
the use of this option.
Many articles have been written educating the internet public
on safe shopping techniques. These articles frequently suggest the
use of companies such as Arin’s Whois to verify company contact
information.
If you have blocked access to this information, the public will
be unable to confirm the legitimacy of your business. The use of
domain privacy options is a technique often associated with less
than reputable companies.
Can you imagine someone opening a business in your town, and
then requesting an unpublished phone number? What if they removed all
evidence of the physical address from their building and advertisements? Would
you doubt their business credibility?
I do however, fully appreciate that many considerations must
be addressed when you are operating a business from your home.
You can put precautions in place to prevent many of these concerns.
Limiting Spam
The vast majority of spam occurs not from your own website, but
rather the many places you post your email address without precautions.
Create a specific contact page on your site. This page should
provide all of your contact information. For contact by email, the
use of forms adds to the professional image of your site. You can
also configure these forms NOT to display your email address.
Consider using external JavaScript to display your linked email
address on this page. The browser will display the address for your
site visitors, but email harvesters will not be able to see it in
the coding of the site.
Offer both methods of contacting you by email to accommodate
users with JavaScript functions disabled on their computer. Contact
links throughout your site should point directly to your contact
page.
Here are pages offering more information on how to configure contact scripts:
If your domain host does not provide the ability for you to use
the necessary scripting to easily use forms on your site, I recommend
finding a hosting company that will meet all of your business needs.
Following is a review I wrote for the hosting company I personally use and
recommend.
Do not display your email address on profiles such as Yahoo Profiles.
Do not allow another website to post your email address. You
have no control of what methods they use to display your email address,
so simply request that they only publish your website address. Use
your business email address strictly for business.
When signing up for freebies and newsletters that require your
email address, use a totally separate address, such as your Yahoo
mail account, or another email address that you have set up specifically
for this purpose.
Controlling Phone Contacts
Obviously, you do not want your home phone ringing at 3:00 in
the morning with questions about the product or service you provide.
You will need to consider some options that will help control contacts
by phone. The best option is to install a separate phone line strictly
for business purposes. Often, your telephone company offers a special discount for a
second line.
Set up a professional voice mail response for calls
that occur outside of common business hours, or for when you are
unavailable. You should also seriously consider turning off the
ringer during these times.
Many new home-based businesses cannot afford a second line in
the beginning. Consider adding selective ring to your phone options.
As a last result, you could carefully screen calls using the caller
id service available through your phone company.
Display Privacy Policy
There is no getting around this. You need to display a link to your
privacy policy from every page on your site. A search on Google
will show a variety of generators to help you create one specific
to your website.
Display Familiar Logos for Website Credibility
Display "familiar" logos that help instill credibility and confidence.
Are you a member of a better business bureau, or your local chamber
of commerce? Display major credit card images, along with familiar
logos of your available shipping options. Always check copyright
restrictions before using any images on your website.
Professional Web Design
Take a long hard look at your website. Does it portray a legitimate
business? Or, does it give the impression of a personal homepage?
If the appearance is not at the level of professionalism that you
want it to be, consider redesigning it. If your design skills have
not yet caught up to your business needs, you will need to look
at available alternatives.
- PROFESSIONAL DESIGNER
If you can afford it, consider hiring a professional
designer to create a website or template that will fit your personal
business needs. For many small business owners just starting,
this is not an affordable solution.
- PROFESSIONAL TEMPLATE
Consider purchasing a
professional template. Quality templates will probably
begin at the $50 range. For the benefit of FrontPage and Dreamweaver
users, please note that it is not necessary to select a template
specifically designed for your particular editor. Simply choose
an HTML or CSS based template. For search engine friendly templates,
always avoid dynamic and flash templates. I recommend HTML or CSS based
templates that will give you complete control of the coding as
necessary.
- GRAPHIC DESIGN PROGRAM
Consider purchasing a program that will give you a base
template , but allows for substantial customization. Templates
can be edited with any html editor, and integrate fully with FrontPage
and Dreamweaver. I have used
Xara Webstyle 4 for
very basic web page layouts, drop down menus,
banners, logos etc. I highly recommend this program as an affordable
alternative.
Display Professional Photos
Consider adding a profession picture of yourself on the about
us page, and in the bio of every article you write. Research shows
an increased level of confidence by potential clients when they
have seen that there is a real person behind the business.
Final Notes
When it comes to your internet business, it does not matter which
tools or methods you choose. What matters is if the result produces
a website that portrays a LEGITIMATE professional business. Take the time to
learn and implement methods that will help instill credibility in your website
and in your business.
A few years ago, I had a client that could not afford to start with a fully
custom web design. I recommended that they begin with a high quality template
for the time being while allowing time for their business to grow.
Unfortunately the client took my comments as meaning that I felt that a
template was fine for their business, but that I would be unwilling to use one
for mine. This all came while I was also teaching people in my classes that they
needed to use a professional design, even if that meant using a high quality
template at first
In order to put my money where my mouth was concerning my belief that
the content is what matters, provided you are using a professional design, I
made the decision to change my main business site to a website template.
My original intent was to change the design after a few months, back to one of my own
creations, but time has continued to be a serious challenge, so it has remained for the
time being, while I attend to other priorities, such as teaching our web
classes.
For graphics and basic photo editing, I use
Xara Webstyle. I also use Xara Xtreme Pro, several versions of Paint
Shop Pro, Photoshop Elements, and wide variety of additional graphic editors.
For coding, I predominately use FP2003 and Expression Web, but I do work almost
entirely in html mode. Other times I work straight from notepad.
For me, it comes down to using the tools that are best for a particular
project.
I WILL DEFINITELY SEE YOU AT THE TOP!
Mississippi Web Designer and SEO Training Specialist
Owner GNC Web Creations and Mississippi Photo Gallery
Link to Website Credibility
Instilling Credibility in Your Website
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