June 13, 2004



Critical Factors In Gaining Online Credibility

 

"There are about 35 million websites on the Internet - by 2014 there'll be an estimated 150 million, not including personal websites. With so many people online and so many websites competing with yours, if you can't persuade Internet users to be loyal to your website then someone else will. According to BJ Fogg, the world's leading researcher on web credibility, web credibility is about making your website in such a way that it comes across as trustworthy and knowledgeable. His book is so good that even Jakob Nielsen himself dedicated a whole Alertbox issue to it." So what are the most immediately useful actions one can take to improve the credibility of anyone site?

  1. Make it very easy to contact you

  2. Link to external websites that reference your organisation

  3. Provide staff bios

  4. Show photos of the office, staff, products etc.

  5. Ensure that you answer any questions your site visitors may have, for example:

  6. What is the purpose of your organisation?

  7. How much does your product cost?

  8. What happens if I'm not happy with your service

  9. What will you do with my email address once I give it to you?"

All of these are important factors in making your online credibility stand above average. But there are two things, that if done correctly are able to completely transform the number and quality of visitors that you will attract:
1) All statements should be backed up by third-party evidence: Every single point you make on your website must, without fail, be backed up with hard evidence - preferably from a third-party website. How else can a reader know for sure that you're telling the truth?
  1. Use testimonials discretely but extensively.
  2. Publish case studies of your work.
  3. Add a latest news section.
  4. Consider a jobs page.
  5. Offer a free quality newsletter.
2) Have a professional, consistent, highly legible "look and feel". "Studies have consistently proven that the most important criteria of Web credibility is... the way the website looks. That's it. It's been suggested that this is due to the short amount of time we spend on websites so we tend to rely on initial judgements." Invest therefore not in "looks" or in trying to make your web site look nice, but rather in listening and opening up to the advice and techniques used by those communication experts called Information Designers.



Reference: WebDevTips [ Read more ]
Conversation Tags:
 
Readers' Comments    
Recent Articles


October 3, 2008
Online Marketing Trends: Brands Meet Blogs - State Of The Blogosphere 2008


Brands and blogs unite... almost. It's not a match made in heaven yet, but the trend is heading in that direction. According to Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2008 report, an increasing number of companies are reaching out to bloggers to harness the power of the... read more




September 30, 2008
Online Video Interview: How To Prepare Yourself For It


Getting ready for an online video interview? Find out how to set up your computer, webcam, lights and microphone for a perfect online video interview. Though for a geek this may be simple stuff, if you are not a technically skilled person or if you have... read more




September 29, 2008
Best Web-Based Image And Photo Editors - Sharewood Guide


Web-based image editors are online tools that anyone can use to easily modify, resize, edit and crop digital photographs or graphics files, without needing to download and install any software. Photo credit: Pixlr Interface Digital image editors, are typically free, and, in most cases, do not even... read more




September 26, 2008
How To Publish Your Content Online Without A Web Site - Video Interview With Ryan Hupfer Of Hubpages.com


Ready to publish some great content online but have no site or blog where to post it to? Hubpages, like a few other competing web publishing services online (namely Squidoo and Google Knol) provides you with everything you need to publish any content you are passionate... read more




September 18, 2008
Information Overload: What It Is And How You Can Avoid It


Information overload: are you affected by it? How can you better manage it? Are big companies giving us more and better information? How can you determine which information is worthwhile looking at? How to you decrease the noise created by the huge volume of info... read more




September 16, 2008
Live Events Strategy: Mashing Up Physical Conferences With Online Extended Events - Live Events Become X-Events


A new class of powerful, inclusive, popular and engaging events liberated from the straitjacket of space-time by the convergence of usable new media technologies is ushering at your door: X-events are next. Photo credit: XLucas But let me explain myself better: Online (and offline) events should not be... read more




posted by Robin Good on Sunday, June 13 2004, updated on Tuesday, February 21 2006


 

 

 

 

Understanding comes from exploration

Home | Subscribe | RSS Feeds | Site map | Syndicate
Consulting | Publications
About | Privacy | Contact

 

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.





View blog authority

 

1690