Answer 3 Simple Questions to Help Boost Online Conversions

Asking yourself 3 simple questions can help you to increase conversions on your eCommerce web site. They're easy to ask and easy to answer...the problem is that they're often overlooked.

So what do they have to with? They're all about trust. Ask yourself these three questions in regards to your company, your products and your website in general. If you address them correctly, you can help boost conversions on your existing site.

1. Why should visitors trust my company?
2. Why should visitors trust my products?
3. Why should visitors trust my web site?

Why should visitors trust my company?

Would you rather buy from a company that you've heard of or one you haven't? Name and brand recognition are important to visitors when making a purchase. If they know your company, they're more likely to trust you. Obviously, there are thousands of great eCommerce sites out there that many of you may have never heard of, but will someday stumble upon to make a purchase. Do the following to help enlist trust in your company:

• Tell visitors about your company. Use the 'About Us' section of your website to tell a little bit about your company, your employees and your history. It will give your website a personal touch and help visitors to see the 'man behind the machine', so to speak. Also be sure to include your company's physical address on this page as well as your 'Contact Us' page
• Clearly display all of your company policies. Most importantly your shipping and return policies. Put links to them on all your pages, and make them especially prominent on your product and checkout pages. If people can't find these or they don't exist, why should they trust your company?
• Join industry specific clubs and associations. Being part of an association related to your industry gives your company credibility as a legitimate business that other people know and trust. Of course, don't forget to display the association's logo on your web site.

Why should visitors trust my products?

Aside from trusting your company itself, visitors want to trust what you're selling. Are you selling big brand name products like Sony or Apple? Probably not. Does that mean your products or their manufacturers can't instill trust in visitors? Of course not. Take action in the following ways to tell visitors why they should trust what you're selling:

• Don't just talk about your products, talk about their manufacturers. In doing so, you are creating "buzz" for the very products you are selling. Your visitors may have never heard of the manufacturer of your products(s), but start talking about their years of great service, countless industry awards and unwavering commitment to excellence and your visitors will be that much more inclined to trust them and you.
• Get customer reviews. These are essential to building trust in your products, especially if they're new innovative products, or stuff that many people have never heard of. Customer reviews are often hard to get, so you need to make filling one out worth someone's while. Follow up to customers a few weeks later via e-mail offering them a chance to win a $200 shopping spree on your website. In the end, you'll be paying $200 for a load of reviews. Your visitors will now see that other people actually bought your products and what they thought of them. 

Why should visitors trust my web site?

In addition to trusting your company, visitors also need to trust your web site itself. If they don't trust your web site, why would they make a purchase on it? Take action in the following ways to increase the trustworthiness of your web site:

• Get 3rd party trust certifications. These do cost money, but will pay instant and continual dividends. A 3rd party trust certificate tells visitors that an independent organization has reviewed your web site and has verified it's legitimacy in one or more ways. Hacker Safe is a very popular trust certificate and is proven to boost conversion rates an average of 14%. Why? Because visitors feel much safer when its time to give you their personal information. And there's no way you're getting a sale without that information.
• Track all your web site errors and fix them as soon as you can. Every time a visitor gets an error on your web site, especially during checkout, it makes your site look cheap and quite frankly, useless. Visitors are extremely unlikely to spend time on your site to "track down" the error and then continue to make a purchase. They're even more unlikely to return for another visit. How can people trust your web site if it doesn't work?

These suggestions are enough to get you started on boosting your web site's conversions. The ways in which to address these questions are not set in stone, and like everything else on the internet, they are extremely dynamic. So be sure to ask yourself these 3 questions often: Why should visitors trust my company? Why should visitors trust my products? Why should visitors trust my web site?