The Consumer Sentinel Network received over 4.7 million complaints about online scams and people lost $3.3 billion to fraud in the year 2020 alone! Such numbers indicate that it is obvious for people to be more suspicious while putting their trust in new businesses and websites in upcoming years. It is bad news for cyber scammers and genuine start-ups as well. Especially, cybersecurity issues in the retail and eCommerce industry are so striking and critical that it is a highly challenging situation for a new business to gain customers’ confidence in that industry. Apart from security vulnerabilties, and legal compliances, a business needs to make sure the website looks trustworthy to the visitors. For that, new businesses must avoid these 8 mistakes to help people distinguish their legit website from a fake one.
1. Don’t Provide Only One Communication Channel
Don’t keep communication limited to only one medium (i.e., online forms, most of the time.) Give more options like multiple email addresses, phone numbers, and the chat-box. Don't keep contact forms limited for lead generation purposes that are made for "Request Demo ", or "Price Quotation" only. The forms must be open-ended and give website visitors a chance to interact with you for various issues/topics.
If you can't afford to hire enough support staff for the live chat, use chatbots that can solve at least some basic issues and take the person's email address or phone number; so that you can contact them at your earliest convenience. Plus, you can also give options to customers for connecting through social media pages like Facebook and Twitter. In fact, it is very easy (and free) to enable and customize chatbot for your Facebook page’s messenger.
When customers see that you are open for communication, it boosts their trust that if any issues take place, your business is easily approachable and willing to help.
2. Be Honest with Customer Reviews
If it is an eCommerce site, encourage customers to leave reviews. But be honest here. Don't delete negative reviews. Otherwise, people won't trust even the genuine reviews and rating of the other products. According to a survey, 81% of people trust friends and family's advice over the company's sponsored ads. Here are some interesting statistics. But if they find reviews manipulative, it would create serious trust issues about your business in the long run.
3. Avoid Clickbait Titles
Don’t use titles just to make users click on them if you don’t have any intention to deliver the promise. For example, having a link/banner stating, “Up to 80% discount”, but no product on your site has more than 30% discount. Or a blog post title indicating an interesting topic, but you don’t have strong/reliable content to offer for the topic. For example, “Latest cybersecurity statistics: 2021 version”, but the statistics you included in the post are obsolete and aren’t taken from credible sources. Such fake clickbait titles are the quickest way to lose website visitors' trust in your business.
4. Don’t Show Recklessness in the Content
Be highly careful about the content on your website. There must be a zero-tolerance policy for spelling and grammatical mistakes. Use services like Grammarly or SentenceCheckup to detect errors. Also, avoid blurred and broken images.
Although it is a well-known fact that Google has SEO penalties for duplicate content, people are still not taking plagiarism seriously. Anything you write on your website, use services like Copyscape to make sure you are not having duplicate content even accidentally. If you are adding content from other sites, give credit to the original source, use quotation marks, or use a canonical tag.
5. Content Not Backed by Reliable Sources
Include the industry-related experts’ opinions and quotes in your content. If you are writing a topic about startups, for example, include the opinions of entrepreneurs, marketing specialists, and consultants in the content. If writing for healthcare-related topics, incorporate physicians and relevant medical professional’s views on that topic to show the credibility of the content. You can use your personal sources or free online resources like HARO, Terkel, or Qwoted to get experts’ opinions on a topic.
6. Don’t Hide the Pricing
This is the issue with the service-based or B2B industry. Many businesses make it compulsory for website visitors to fill-up forms and provide their personal information to get a price quote. Although the argument behind this is that the prices are customized as per the requirements and size of the order, it can drive many potential customers away. Instead, give approx. price with examples so that people will get a basic idea about your pricing structure.
Let's say you are a digital marketing agency. Now, it is obvious that pricing would vary as per the services required by clients. But if you provide a general pricing estimate, for example, the topic and keyword brainstorming+ writing+ editing+ SEO+ publishing+ marketing of 10 blog posts/month would generally cost you $XX. But this price might vary as per the length of the article. Or makes packages like "10 blog posts, 5 guest posts, 15 backlinks, 10 PPC ads, and basic SEO audits will cost you $XX. But you can customize this as per your requirements. Have some more add-on services or remove the services you don't require. For an accurate estimate, fill out the given form".
By doing this, you will have a sharp advantage over the competitors who don’t mention the upfront price. People would love to avoid talking to pesky salesmen that boast a lot about the service and then give the budget at the end. It’s just a huge waste of time. Transparency will definitely help here.
7. Be Careful About Employment Sites’ Reviews
People often underestimate this part. But employee reviews on sites like Glassdoor and Indeed do showcase the company's overall culture and ethics. If your company is in the B2B sector or service industry, remember that potential clients will do thorough research about your organization before placing a large order or hiring you for the service.
If employees have written negative things about the company like "unethical practices going on", "wasting clients' money", "too much dirty politics", "higher-level management doesn't care", etc., such opinions will be taken seriously to decide the trustworthiness of your business. Hence, make sure you treat employees fairly to prevent negative reviews on job boards. You can also feature positive employee reviews and ratings on your career page to boost up future applicants' confidence.
If your website is engaged in corporate social responsibility, doing any social work, giving days off to employees for volunteering, don’t forget to highlight that, too, to create an emotional appeal.
8. Don’t Show Pop-ups Without a Careful Planning
Let's be honest. Popups are irritating. Don't start showing them too soon. If someone has just arrived on your site and sees a subscription popup immediately, they would find it pesky. Let them spend some time on your website, understand the business, and read some content. Plan the popup timings carefully.
For example, readers should get the subscription popups only after they complete 60%-70% of a blog article. Or when they are on a product page, show them a discount/coupon pop-up. If customers are searching for more than a stipulated time, show them an email subscription pop-up like "Get latest deals on your inbox", "Subscribe with the email address and get XX% discount on your next purchase". In short, don't ask for personal details and email IDs too quickly.