Build confidence into your website design
Like all good design agencies it seems, we're avid BBC 6Music listeners here at the Bourn studio. Of course that means we pick up on a lot of news related to the music scene, and one of the big issues doing the rounds lately has been over fake festival ticket websites.
Sadly whenever there's a surge in these bogus websites, this can have a knock-on effect for everyone. It knocks confidence in ecommerce sites, and people less savvy with the web will often wonder 'well how do I know I can trust xyz to be genuine' for any etailer. Of course most sites are genuine, and that's why we thought we'd give a few simple tips to help boost confidence in your site.
The most important thing to consider of course is the overall design and branding of the website. A well designed site shows that the company has made investment in something they plan to use for a while, rather than a 5 page site for £100 they plan to use for a fortnight. Think of what site you'd be most likely to buy from if you saw two sites selling the same product for the same price, but with the two described opposites in terms of design.
Once that core has been sorted, there are quite a few seemingly small things, but which can have a huge effect on confidence. First off, display your address and a contact phone number, and make these prominent to find (sometimes it can even in the footer on every page). It is actually a legal requirement to display registered company address details somewhere on a company site. Admittedly this is widely ignored, however for your own benefit, having customers just know that a website has a physical address can be hugely confidence boosting. The same applies with listing a phone number. Wherever possible, keep it local too, which means a number with your area code on it (0161 for us in Manchester for example). Whilst an 0845 or 0870 number may seem big on the surface, these are much less trusted as they are not tied to any location, and are known to be revenue earners. They also cost more for most people to dial, discouraging them from trying (which may cause them to go elsewhere completely). Whatever number is shown, ensure someone is there to answer it who knows the information about the products on the site, and clearly list what hours they are available. Also be cautious with contact or feedback forms on a site. Whilst they are handy for some information gathering, if you don't provide any alternative contact methods (such as phone or email), it can look like you're trying to hide yourself.
Away from the contact methods, one final thing to consider is having a secure certificate on the site. These cost a few hundred pound and need renewing every 2 or so years (and are something I will touch on further in another article), but they add confidence for a customer by causing your site to show the famous 'padlock' in their browser.
Posted By: Terence
14 January 2009