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Increase user participation by Increasing your trustworthiness

So you’ve done all the proper SEO stuff for your site, you’ve told everyone you know about it, and you’ve designed your site to look as professional as possible. Now that you have your website up and running, users should start flocking to your website, filling out forms, becoming a member of your community, or just generally clicking around and accomplishing the goal you had intended. In a perfect world, your website would be bustling with activity, but unfortunately, not everyone’s website always goes as planned. If you find that your user participation has been less than you expected, it may be an issue of trust, among other things.

Experience has taught many internet users to be skeptical of everything on the web. We’ve all been burned at some point by an untrustworthy website, so you have to prove to each and every user that you are worthy of their trust. You have to prove that the form users must fill out will not increase the spam in their inbox, or that the button you wish them to press will not bring them to an advertising site with endless popups and popunders. Proving your trustworthiness is no small feat, but here are a few tips that may help you.

Create a Clean, Professional Design and User Interface

Nothing says “I’m a serious and trustworthy business” more than a clean, professionally designed website and user interface. If your website looks like it was slapped together on powerpoint, or hacked together by an amateur, the user will never take your website seriously. OR, if your website is frustratingly difficult to navigate through, your user will just give up and leave. Spending the time, effort, and (possibly) money to create a compelling professional design and intuitive user interface will pay off immensely when the site is launched.

Check for typos

Typos on your website are red flags for the user. If you aren’t professional enough to check the spelling in your content, you aren’t professional enough to be trusted with user information or participation.

Display major awards or certifications and provide links to the organization that awarded them

If you were selling your property and had to choose between a realtor A, who has no awards, versus realtor B, who has many awards for selling a record number of properties, which would you choose? (assuming that all other points are equal) Unless there was something absolutely special about the no-awards realtor, I would choose the realtor with awards under his belt. With realtor B, I would at least know that he has the experience to get the job done, and would therefore trust him to sell my property more than realtor A.

Just like realtor B, your website should proudly show your awards. Don’t overload the user with every single award that you may have received, but do show the major awards.

BKKTLaw highlights their achievements by incorporating an icon of being named one of the “Top Firms of 2009″ by IP Today Magazine.

KennyTheFloorGuy also establishes credibility by mentioning his Five-Star contractor rating

Tell the user what will happen if they take an action

You want the user to press a button, or to fill out a form. BUT, as I stated earlier, most users have learned to be skeptical of links, buttons, and forms. So, to get users to trust your site, make it more transparent. If you want a user to click a button, tell them what will happen if they do click a button. Will they by taken to a form? Will they find themselves in limbo? If you want the user to fill out a form, tell them why and what will happen if they do. By making the actions on your site more transparent, you become more trustworthy.

Childhelp OC – This website does a good job of telling the user what will happen if they take action. On the left, the button clearly states “Click Here for Golf Reservations,” which leads the user to a reservation form page. On the right, there is text to let the user know that they will be navigating to a new site if they click on a Sponsor Logo.

Display security certificates for forms

If your site has a checkout, or a form that users must fill with sensitive information and submit, displaying any security certificates would assure the user that their information is safe, which makes the user more likely to complete the form or checkout.

VeriSign and TRUSTe are some examples of trusted security certificates

Add Disclaimers or notes to reassure the user

Along with security certificates, make sure to display any disclaimers or notes to the user. For example, a popular disclaimer is one that tells the user their information is safe. These are often found on contact forms and basically lets the user know that their information will only be used to contact them and not sold to 3rd parties.

Manly & Stewart- This disclaimer is added to the bottom of their Contact Us form to ensure users of their valued privacy rights.

Only gather the information you absolutely need

To further encourage form completion, only ask for the minimal amount of information you need. Aside from saving the user time, it also emphasizes the idea that you will not sell their information (because you don’t have much to sell). In terms of form fields, less is more!

Seniority1- To get a Free Report, the form only asks for a First name and Email address.

After the user completes an action, tell them what will happen next

If the user trusts you enough to take an action, or fill out a form, follow through with that good faith and let them know what will happen now. Will they be getting an email? How long will it take? What should they do in the mean time? Don’t leave the user hanging, wondering what happened. Tell them clearly what you will do and what they should do.

Project Artisan – A confirmation message appears and specifically lets the customer know that they will be receiving a confirmation email within the next 24-hours. They also provide an option for the user to either Register for a new account (if they haven’t done so already) or Continue Shopping.

Thoroughly test your site for any bugs

Bugs every once in a while is understandable and forgivable to an extent. If your site is just full of bugs, it makes it unuseable. Furthermore, it makes your website untrustworthy. Especially if an error occurs in a crucial area, such as a checkout or form submission. At that point, if you are not a well established site, such as amazon or yahoo, that user will more than likely give up and never return. So before you launch, make sure that you’ve tested everything on your site.

Altmeds.com – The splash page notifies the user that the site is a Beta Release. This increases user awareness that the site is monitoring for improvement and minor bugs may be present.

This isn’t an all encompassing list, but it lists enough of the basics to get you started. If you aren’t already meeting your website goals, hopefully these tips will help you accomplish them.