8 replies to this topic

[feifei]

Hi everyone,

Together with a few colleagues, we are trying to enhance the level of credibility of one of our colleague’s website. The purpose of the website is to provide a one stop shop for people overseas (South Africa in particular) to purchase a home or immigrating to Australia. This is done by liaising on the clients’ behalf with range of service providers including immigration agents, banks, removalists and financial planners.

One of the main concerns of building such website is the credibility. How do you think we can improve how credibility? What can we include in our design? Thank you!

Best Regards,
Fei

[ewc21]

Welcome Fei!

There are quite several factors we can consider on credibility or reputation of a web site. Firstly a good design speaks well of a site along with contents, with proper copywriting, grammar check, spelling and punctuations. Consistency in design, good navigation tools that bring excellent user experience.

If you have existing clients they can also speak about your business such as testimonies.

[OldWelshGuy]

Third part endorsements are one of the easiest ways I have seen to build trust. Be it credit card logos, BBB logo, Chamber of commerce etc. All of these things will build trust and credibility. But if your site is poorly designed then it might well be in vain.

[Michael Martinez]

Don't use anonymous or semi-anonymous endorsements, though. If people cannot track down the source of an endorsement, they won't trust it. So, tossing in a box with the comment "This is the best service I've found on the Internet! M. Martinez, Houston" is equivalent to saying, "I'm a cheap scammer who doesn't have any legitimate customers."

[OldWelshGuy]

Good comment Michael. It certainly is important to make the endorsements as crdible as possible. I know it might sound stupid, but on an Ecommerce site, having the credit/debit card logos on all pages can make a big change on conversions. I mean it is obvious that an ecommerce shopping site is going to take credit cards, but those graphics just do it LOL.

[bwelford]

Another important point is to establish the credibility of the people who are behind the website and who will perform the services. Say who they are, even photographs may help, and give enough background information to show that these are interesting, enthusiastic and reliable people. Also give multiple ways of contacting them including physical address.

[Betty]

Have a legit. street address (not a P.O. box) and a real phone number that is answered by a real person, not voice mail.

Have a way to verify this by a 3rd party - such as a BBB listing or other listing as already mentioned.

[Karri]

Could you and your team author 10-20 articles or short "tips" about international relocation issues? If the pieces are written by your people, this can lend credibility also. You could post these "tips" throughout the site in text boxes or create a section of the site dedicated to this.

Always nice to show that you "know your stuff" in a way that requires a little extra effort.

Karri

[torka]

You may be interested in this: Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility

From the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University (http://credibility.stanford.edu/)

--Torka