Credibility Pages – Builds Trust and Increases Sales

Fourth Page Type

The fourth type of web pages – Credibility pages – relate to those that enhance your site’s credibility in some way. They are especially important for Ecommerce sites.

About Page

The About page allows you to tell the story behind your site and thereby make a connection with the visitors who want to know more about it. This page also provides another way of showing that your site is a legitimate web business that they can trust.

Below is a checklist of items that you can display on your About page to reinforce your credibility. Note that the About page can include several subpages.

• A brief description and history of your site or company.
• Your website or company objectives.
• Professional photos and descriptions of yourself or the company members.
• A personal or professional biography.

Contact Page

Including a clearly visible page with a contact form allows users to send a message to the site owner on the site itself. This form of communication is better than an email link since it appears more professional and does not leave your email address available for email spam crawlers to collect. Furthermore, a contact form provides a more immediate means of communicating than having to open an emailing application to send the message. To make it as simple as possible for visitors to contact you, make sure not to include any unnecessary forms. Their email address, subject and message are often enough.

Your Contact page should include your contact information. Providing this information will make visitors more comfortable because your business will be perceived as being more legitimate. The visitors want to at least know the name and physical address of you or your company.

If you get a lot of e-mail messages, you can hire a company to handle them for you. Make sure that the person who answers the email is knowledgeable in the site’s niche and can communicate with grace and style. Also be sure that the email is answered within 24 hours. Efficient business procedures that are focused on providing customer satisfaction will enhance your site’s credibility.

FAQ Page

Often, visitors will have questions about your products and services. To reduce the number of these inquires you receive, be sure to include a page that answers the most common of these questions. This will enhance your site’s credibility because it shows that you care about answering people’s questions regarding your product. It also shows that you actually have customers, which is very important for the image of an Ecommerce site. Going one step further, you can create a support forum, in which customers may help to answer their own questions.

Privacy Policy Page

When asking visitors to provide private information – such as their name, email or credit card number – you need to display a link to your privacy policy page. On this page you tell the visitor exactly how you will be using the information you collect. There are a number of generators that can help you create a privacy policy specific to your website – for example, the OECD Privacy Statement Generator.

404 Page

A custom 404 (file not found) page can help you retain more traffic and will appear more professional than the server’s default 404 page. Make sure it includes your standard site template and navigation in addition to informing the visitor that they have found the page in error. Avoid placing the actual term “404” on the page.