Ecommerce Website Owners: Are You Leaving Money On The Counter?
You’ve invested a considerable amount of time and money in building your ecommerce website. You know that the best way to grow business is by engagement with your customers, but you may not be doing all you can to make them feel comfortable and trusting. This could be costing you money!
In this blog post, we’ll break down five ways to make sure your ecommerce website is as trustworthy as possible so that people keep coming back for more.
1) Create A Trustworthy Ecommerce Website
If you’re serious about growing your business and taking advantage of ecommerce, you can’t forget about your online presence. The fact is that shoppers today have to do a little more research before they buy. If they don’t trust you, they won’t purchase from you—and that means less sales for you!
So how do customers find out about and purchase from your ecommerce website? They browse the Internet, of course! And what are some things that can give them pause to investigate further? You can bet that if the site has a full-blown security risk or seems less than trustworthy, customers will pass on it.
The truth is that trust has been a problem for ecommerce websites for quite a while. A study conducted by BrightEdge showed that 55% of people using search engines to find products will never return to the site they found them on.
You can see this in action with the example below: Google found this site during an ecommerce related search query. The website is well designed, but it’s missing a trust symbol to boost the credibility of the business and product information. On the right we see a competitor who used a Trust Seals widget from our trusted partner, Credibility Management Solutions, and increased conversions by 463%.
So how can you build that trust with your ecommerce website? Start by ensuring that your website is secure. The best way to do this is through SSL encryption . This ensures that all data communicated between the client and server is encrypted using a key. Without this encryption, third parties can access the data being sent between the two. This isn’t just a problem for ecommerce websites; if you take online payments, it’s required that your site use an SSL certificate.
Next, consider adding a trust seal or badge to your site. There are many of these available online, and they usually cost less than $100 per year to add to your website.
Here are some of the other types available:
2) Add Social Proof To Your Ecommerce Website
If you’ve ever been to a website, then you know that it can be very easy to fall into the trap of assuming that a product or service is better than it really is. If so many individuals are raving about this product or service, then in all likelihood they’re telling the truth. You could find yourself buying something off a site where there are no glowing reviews at all, because you assumed that it was too good to be true.
This is exactly why you want to include social proof when you’re marketing your ecommerce site. It is the best form of consumer research there is. No matter if you’re a store owner or an ecommerce website owner, having positive reviews is the best way to ensure that people are still willing to purchase from you. And it works!
You see, a study conducted by eMarketer found that 66% of consumers trust social proof for making purchasing decisions . This is why you want to include social proof on your ecommerce website.
You should focus on four main areas of social proof: the number of reviews, their ratings, how long they’ve been around, and where they come from. For example, the best websites will have hundreds of reviews. They will be high rated with a 4 or 5 out of 5 stars and a generally positive tone to them. These reviews should also be coming from customers who are reputable sources such as consumer reports or well-known online magazines . And remember that these should be coming from sources with a following like people on Twitter .
If you haven’t already done so, spend some time building up positive reviews for your ecommerce site from the get-go. These will come in handy when you need to give your customers a reason to keep coming back.
3) Display Testimonials On Your Ecommerce Website
Instead of showing off only the products and reviews that are most popular on your ecommerce website, consider adding testimonials as well. This is because users want the truth—and testimonials will show them that. It might be hard to get those initial reviews up, but once you have a few of them it gets easier and easier each time after that .
Having testimonials on your ecommerce website isn’t just a nice-to-have feature. It helps build trust with consumers who are shopping for products online. Why? Because it shows that you value the opinions of your customers and you want to make sure they’re getting what they expect. When presented with a product that is truly superior, people notice—and word of mouth is one of the best ways to get more customers online!
4) Ensure Consistent Voice And Tone On Your Ecommerce Website
When assessing a company, potential customers won’t just be looking for product information; they’ll also be interested in knowing about how their experiences have been. The voice of your brand is how you communicate this. It is the personality your business has online and the way that you speak.
The voice of your brand must be consistent across every channel . If a customer goes to your website and then sees that you’re also on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest, they should be able to recognize the same tone of voice in all locations. It should be clear to anyone visiting your website that they’re talking to the same business entity as what they see everywhere else on social media, online reviews, etc.
Conclusion
You want to ensure that your ecommerce website stands out in the market or on search engines. Solving these four issues will help your business stand out from the rest of the competition. Remember, these things don’t need to cost a lot of money; it just needs to be done right!
To learn more about building a better ecommerce website, see our article on creating an ecommerce website using WordPress . Also, take a look at our article on security for ecommerce websites.
Image source: Shutterstock // StockMonkeys.