In this tutorial, you will learn what a trust signal is and how you can implement one in an Episerver CMS powered website. You might not have come across the term trust signal before, however, you will have seen it used countless times on most major e-commerce websites. A trust signal is an area on a page designed to help build trust with your visitors. A trust signal tries to prove that your website is legit. If people visiting your website don't trust your brand, your product, or have concerns about what you will do with their personal data, then they won't buy anything from you. The idea of implementing a trust signal on your site is to increase conversion rates, after all, we all like cash money 💵💵💵

Digital trust has become an important topic for any successful web platform and it shouldn't be ignored. When someone visits your website, a strong virtual handshake is the best way to encourage someone to make a transaction with you. In today's guide, I'm going to cover some of the most proven trust signals to help enable site conversions and revenue growth.

The 5 Most Effective Trust Signals

There are many different types of trust signals and a lot of research has been made into which signals are more likely to persuade. Implementing the most appropriate trust signals into your sales funnel can instantly double conversion rates. This study found 70% of website users won't follow through with an online purchase if they don't trust the source. In this section, I will cover the five best converting trust signals:

Reviews: Being able to find unbiased fellow consumer reviews is an extremely powerful influencing factor to help consumers decide to purchase one of your products. I would be extremely surprised if anyone reading this article hasn't used reviews to base their decisions about downloading or purchasing something. Common examples of reviews include:

  • IMDB's reviews when deciding which box-set they should start on next

  • Amazons reviews to help you decide which book or electronic good to buy

  • TripAdvisor database to decide, what tourist attractions or hotels you want to stay in

In How Social Media is Changing the SEO Industry the study showed 88% of consumers will check out reviews before making a final decision on a purchase. If you add a user review section into your Episerver commerce website where your visitors can read other customer reviews of your products, and review products themselves, then according to the stats your rate will increase.

Demonstrate Social Proof: Social proof is another powerful way to build trust with your customer base. In Consumer Trust in Online, Social and Mobile advertising grows, Jacob Neilson found 92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family above any other type of advertising. Getting your customers to recommend your site to their friends is the best way to build trust with your visitors.

Research has shown that social media profiles work (assuming you have good engagement). The advice is to position your social links on every page of your website, either in the header or footer. Having your social proof in the same spot makes it super simple for the user to see people trust your brand. In your Episerver website, add some social icons in the header or footer.

Contact Information: Having reviews and social proof is a great way to build trust with your visitors, however, nothing builds trust quicker than a customer being able to call you up and talk to you directly. A recent client of mine understood this principle so well that their whole sales funnel was solely built to get people interested in their products to phone them up. The company in question knew that the best way for them to build relationships was through communication. For their trust symbol, they had the operators name and photo that they would speak to for each product, along with their telephone number. The call to action for a customer to phone up an operator was constantly visible on the website, no matter where on the site a visitor happened to be. Contact information should be available from every page, either against a product, in the header or the footer. The recommended contact information that you should include on your site, include:

  • Email address

  • Phone number

  • Your Geographic Location

  • Opening hours

  • A picture of your employee

Displaying contact information and inviting people to get in contact with you before they make a purchase proves that you've got nothing to hide. The first time someone stumbles across your website their trust will be at it's lowest. If you can get someone to phone you up, or email you, then the chance of making a sale with them exponentially increases.

Third-party badges and certifications: UXMatters performed a study about the importance and influence of third-party badges. They found icons like 'Visa' and 'Paypal' are the most trusted elements on a website for first time visitors. Displaying the images of the different payment types the site supports in the checkout process is a simple way to build trust. When you want to try and prise a visitor from their money, they need to feel safe and secure with your platforms. Shopping cart abandonment can result in 67.45% of lost sales according to Shopify.

The main reasons for shopping cart abandonment include unexpected costs, website crashes, performance and lastly concerns of payment security. Being able to build any extra trust with your customers in the checkout process will avoid loss of sales. In Episerver, adding images to a checkout page is simple. Add an image property on your checkout page template that allow content editors to upload third-party trust icons.

Multiple payment methods: Recently, I wanted to buy some gig tickets for a band playing in London, the gig was for a small up and coming band playing in a small grotty venue in Camden. The venue's website looked like it was built by a child and the only way to purchase an item was through a Paypal button. Just from the poor design and limited payment options I instinctively found a more trustworthy site to buy the tickets from. The venue lost the commission of the sale.

I'm sure everyone reading this can relate to these dodgy looking websites that failed to build your trust so you found an alternative way to purchase something. When you deal with online sales, customers can live all over the world and will want to pay for goods in a variety of ways. Customers in China will want to pay in a different format than customers in the UK. Luckily, Episerver Commerce has several payment gateways already pre-built that you can integrate into your project.

The greater the variety of payment methods you provide the less likely you will lose sales. The wider choice of payment methods that you accept on your site, the more trust you will build with your visitors. With the likes of DataCash, DIBS, Klarna and PayPal, Episerver has gone to a lot of leg work for you to take most payments 💳💳💳.

Conclusion

Building trust is a key aspect of creating a successful Episerver commerce website that will convert leads into sales. In the online world, one of your main targets should be towards promoting a trustworthy journey with your users. You need to identify what signals your customers need to ensure they follow through in your sales funnel. This article presents the most necessary and compelling techniques for building trust in your digital marketplace. The key takeaway from this post should be to build a website where visitors trust that the products you sell are legitimate and that they can entrust you with their data and money. Happy Coding 🤘