A website that appears trustworthy, imparting educational and entertaining information, is important to establish credibility online. Therefore to establish website credibility, it is important to ensure your website design and content is high quality and targeted towards your potential customers.

So, Why is Website Credibility Important?

Having a credible website means your potential customers are more likely to see your business as a safe pair of hands, one that can be trusted and make them more likely to purchase from you. If your website lacks credibility you will be less likely to generate leads, sell your products and services or gain more traffic to your site.

Does Your Website Have Credibility?

The following checklist will help you ascertain whether your website has established credibility. If you find your website lacking, you can use this list to focus on the necessary improvements.

1. Does your website demonstrate expertise, authority and trustworthiness?

Your website content needs to educate, engage and inspire. You should include call-to-actions to navigate your readers through your sales funnel.

• Your homepage should make it clear what you do and the benefits of your products or services for those visiting your site.
• Using clear and concise language will help you be recognised as a thought leader within your industry.
• Avoid being smart. Offer your target audience clarity to ensure they understand what you offer.
• The use of industry jargon is a no-no. However, if you must use complicated terminology, offer a clear definition.
• Keep your content simple and easy to read. You must be specific if you are to build trust and convert more visitors into buyers.

2. Do you verify the accuracy of your website content by referencing relevant sources?

Avoid making sweeping statements and instead support your claims with relevant sources. This is achieved by referencing external sources, linking to relevant websites, providing testimonials, listing proof of accreditations.

3. Is it clear that a real-life organisation exists behind your website?

Ensure that your website provides information that makes it clear your business really exists. Include the address of your place of work (on your contact page and in the footer of your website), provide your VAT number (if applicable) and/or your Companies House reference. Photos of yourself, your colleagues, your place of work, clients will all help verify that your business is real.

4. Is your website useful and easy to use?

Your site needs clear navigation to guide visitors intuitively to information that is relevant to their specific needs. To ensure your website is useful and easy to use, you need to establish your target audience and aim to solve the issues they are experiencing. It’s also beneficial to understand what your competition is doing to establish your unique selling point (USP) to inform potential customers why they should choose you.

Additionally:

• Ensure elements are consistent and function in the same way across your site.
• Don’t let your web pages look cluttered.
• Navigation must be intuitive and easy to use.

5. Does your site use unnecessary popups and adverts?

You should remove any unnecessary popups and adverts. Such content makes a site appear spammy and visitors often feel these websites are less trustworthy. What’s more, popup adverts are extremely annoying.

It’s vital to be aware that the recently released Google algorithm update focuses on page experience, and will penalise websites with interstitials that impede user experience.

6. Is it easy for potential customers to get in touch with you from your website?

All websites need a contact page. You should provide a link to your contact page from the main navigation menu and also in the footer of your web pages. Contact forms should include:

• name
• phone number
• email address
• message

It’s good advice to regularly ensure that your contact form works. A form that doesn’t work could lead to missed opportunities or be bad for your reputation when enquiries are sent without response.

7. Do you regularly update your website with fresh content?

You should update your website with fresh content when you:

• Have something relevant to share.
• Are launching a new offer.
• Need to update visitors to your site of changes to your business e.g. you cease to offer products or services.
• Have to make a fix.
• Look at your website and can’t stand the sight of it.
• Need to up your game to look better than the competition.

To ensure your website content looks recent:

• Don’t display ‘published on’ dates.
• Eradicate links to sites/pages that have ceased to exist.
• Show that you are on top of industry trends.
• Update rules/policies that are stated on your website as and when required.

8. Is your website free from errors?

If your website contains errors you’re unlikely to make a great impression. We are fully in agreement with this quote from Kyle Wiens:

“Good grammar is credibility, especially on the internet. In blog posts, on Facebook statuses, in emails, and on company websites, your words are all you have. They are a projection of you in your physical absence. And, for better or worse, people judge you if you can’t tell the difference between their, there, and they’re.”

You should always conduct cross-browser checks and validate the appearance of your site across different browsers and device types. It is definitely worth getting someone to read through your web content or alternatively hire a proofreader to ensure your content is free from spelling and grammar errors. It’s also important to ensure your website has no issues with:

• Slow loading pages/images
• Broken contact forms
• Text that is too small to read
• Broken links

9. Do you show visitors that real, honest people work for the company behind your website?

Your About Us page should feature images and information about the team that works for your business. Show evidence of any qualifications and accreditations and provide details of professional highlights. A conversational approach will present your team as a friendly and professional workforce, building a relationship of trust with visitors to your site.

10. Is your website secure?

If the URL of your website isn’t prefixed with HTTPS, browsers will display that your site is not secure. This is a reasonably quick fix, simply get in touch with your web developer or hosting company.

11. Does your website look professional and appropriate for the industry that you work in?

Your website should be designed with your target audience and industry in mind. It should be attractive to look at and deliver your message. In general, a well-designed website is overloaded with information all crammed together, instead, pages look consistent across all pages, with nothing to distract visitors from what they’ve come to your website to achieve.

Start Building Your Website’s Credibility

Call Cyber Sushi Design Today!

There you have it, eleven ways to improve the credibility of your website. If you haven’t the time to invest in making your website credible, Cyber Sushi Design can help enhance your website to promote your expertise, authority and trustworthiness. Contact Cyber Sushi Design on 01494 356 778 for web design and internet marketing services to boost your business online and make your website credible.