How To Build A Trustworthy Homepage For Your Website
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You’ve got a brilliant new business, a killer idea the public will love and the best quality service in the industry. So, why aren’t you getting any customers?
Believe it or not, it might be down to a lack of trust. You may think “but I haven’t done anything wrong” and that might well be true. However, earning trust is less about what you do, and more about what you aren’t doing.
This is never more true than on the centerpiece of any modern business, your website. If your website, and more specifically its homepage, doesn’t inspire trust, your business is a non-starter. Let’s explore some ways you can use and adapt your homepage to give your business a trustworthy aura.
Prioritize reviews
Web design is often a case of making sure you’re prioritizing the most crucial elements of your business.
To most online businesses, that means directing visitors towards products, banners highlighting special deals, and video content showing off their services. It also means giving precedence to what people think of your business and its output.
As part of the social proof phenomenon, customer reviews have become one of the primary factors in how consumers make purchase decisions. This is not just the case in e-commerce either. Across numerous industries, consumers are making a point of checking what previous users have thought about the experiences of using products, services, and customer support. In fact, 57% of consumers have admitted they will only shop with retailers with a star rating of 4 or higher.
To take advantage of this new normal you need to make sure your website puts significant prominence on customer feedback, particularly the visuals of a starred review. Online mortgage broker breezeful.com do this particularly well, featuring not just clear star reviews, but images and testimonial copy from satisfied customers and partners. Adding these personal elements gives the star ratings more humanity, giving customers a greater sense of trust in the business.
Project management tool basecamp.com excels here too, subtly placing reviews and quotes above the headline, almost forcing the visitor to read them and be impressed.
Reviews aren’t just an opportunity to brag about how good you are, they’re a chance to give your business place in the real world and use genuine experiences to your advantage in a way brick and mortar stores do every day.
Brand building content
In today’s modern market a business can’t simply have great products and excellent service, it needs to concentrate on how it brands itself.
While social media has emerged as the primary area for brand building, a business’ website, particularly the first impression a homepage gives, is essential to the process. This isn’t just an exercise in self-promotion for profit though — it’s an essential part of earning customer trust and building the legitimacy of your business.
Brand building content means interviews with team members, blogs about social events, and highlighting the charity work you do outside of the office.
While you can’t feature all of this on your homepage, you should look to include snippets of it. That way, even if a visitor doesn’t read the content they’re still getting some of the intended brand building. Social feeds and large visual banners linking to blogs are a great way to naturally work this content into your homepage.
Don’t overstuff your homepage with too much content though, you don’t want to dilute the message. However, a vital trust-building exercise is making sure new visitors are aware of the people behind the virtual business front.
Get the basics right
Sometimes, the simplest way is the best way.
When it comes to security, many consumers just want to know you’re getting the basics right. For most businesses, the basics mean a secure and well-built website. It’s amazing what doing these crucial elements right can do for your perception among first-time visitors. Something as simple as HTTPS security can completely transform the perception of your website homepage for new visitors.
You want to try and reduce any lingering suspicion as much as possible. Pixelated, stretched images can make a user question the professionalism of your business. A lack of ‘licensed seller’ seals if you’re trying to move specialist products can make consumers question their legitimacy.
Look at how Ingrammicro’s official UK store lists the major brands they work with along the base of its homepage. It’s professional and the use of logos instantly lets you know you’re in safe hands.
Most importantly of all though, you need to be optimized for mobile. There’s no faster way to push people away from your website on their portable device than not fully-optimizing it for those platforms. A user that lands on a homepage that loads in desktop view for mobile may not think that business is a scam, but they won’t trust them enough to part with money or sensitive details.
If you can balance basic security and technical elements with an inventive homepage design you’re well on your way to a successful website.
Make yourself available
One of the worst things you can do with your website is to make it something that disconnects your business from the real world.
Yes, we do operate much more digitally these days, but people still want to be able to imagine a business in a physical setting. You can achieve this by not just including that vital info, but making yourself immediately open and available to contact.
Social media links on your homepage are important for the same reason, letting visitors know you’re reachable on their preferred platform and can be publicly questioned.
For more service-oriented businesses this is a no brainer. Your first objective should be to get people to get in touch with you, so give your phone number and email address pride of place on your website in the same way Apple put their latest iPhone front and center.
Trust is something you have to earn. Consumers have been burned too many times by creative phishing techniques and have an internal checklist they rattle off every time they visit a new website. Make sure you’re hitting the mark.