If you have a website already or if you‘re getting ready to create your own, consider taking action on the steps that make websites credible. This will help you get traffic and repeat visitors.
There are literally millions of websites on the Internet and no doubt you have visited quite a few. Have you ever wondered if a website was credible or not? If you have, what sort of things did you ask yourself that would indicate to you that this particular website was in fact credible?
What Makes Website Credibility Important?
Having a credible website is important because without it, you won’t have repeat visitors, they won’t stay on your site long and they certainly won’t purchase your services or products.
Great websites are credible websites so let’s go over some of the steps toward making a credible website.
- As the author of your website, let people get to see you. Put your photo on the website somewhere. Perhaps in the About You page. No doubt you are aware, people like doing business with people they know and trust. Having your photo on your site will help engage these feelings.
- One of the first things we look for on a website we are considering doing business with is their contact details. You have no idea how many bogus websites exist. There is absolutely no way you can reach them, either by email, phone or by an actual business address. Make sure you provide contact details. You can do this on the About You page as well or create a separate page for these details if you wish.
- Work hard to provide your visitors with what they are looking for. You should know who your target market is and the sorts of things they would be looking for if they visit your site. If you don’t or can’t provide them with the answers, then put links to appropriate resource sites to give them what they want. This certainly adds to your website’s credibility and these folks are likely to come back because you helped them.
- Add content and update your site often. For this reason alone, using a blog as your website rather than a full blown website can be advantageous. Adding content to blogs is easier than to a website but regardless, refresh and update your site regularly.
- Your website needs to have a professional appearance. If it looks just thrown together, no one will take you seriously. Graphics help but those alone won’t do the trick. Make it easy to navigate with tabs and a good navigation bar.
- Use original content or link to the resource you used or references. Never use content you didn’t create without the original author’s permission or linking to their original material.
- Use the right domain extension. “.com”,”.edu”, “.org” are more trusted by Internet users. It doesn’t make a site better than another, but visitors seem to trust domains with those extensions more than like “.info” or “.net”.
- Post Terms and Conditions on your site. Not only will this help you legally but when a visitor sees that you have these on your site, they know you mean business.
- Make your website Printer Friendly. This is really a cool addition to your site. It allows your users to print information from your site. Plus users can choose not to print photos and graphics, saving them paper and ink. They will really appreciate you for making this available. We are using the “Printer Friendly & PDF” Version 2.0 plugin from WordPress Wrench.
- Put a Search Engine on your site. There are tools available that allow you to put a search engine browser field on your site. You can even give the users a choice of searching the web or your site. Visitors will love it and come back in the future since they now have to ability to search right from your site.
In summary, it’s important to have website credibility and the above list of steps is by no means exhaustive but taking action on those above will improve how others view your site and will help make yours a great website.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I do agree with you wholeheartedly. If I land on a website that is not credible, I very quickly click away!
Thanks for your comments Helen. Credibility is something not every one thinks about when they put their website together. Keeping these actions in mind can make a difference in website credibility.
{ 1 trackback }