So what is a trust feature?

Sometime last year I watched a webinar about site security and what to do to have your customers trust you and therefore buy from your site.  It was put on, as it turns out, by one of the big names in the industry to sell a specific product.  The product will remain unnamed but it is a good product and good idea that is offered by several industry giants.

It’s expensive though for the average small site, so I took all that info they gave me in that webinar and came up with some recommendations that any cart owner can put into play.

Most folks know that having that little padlock down on your bottom browser bar show that it is locked means that the site should be safe to buy from.  But that’s awfully subtle for the average visitor and also doesn’t normally show up until they start to check out.

So what do you do to engender trust in your visitors?

The first recommendation is to put images with links on your site that show certain things and to put those images at the very top – in the header.

Though that does put that kind of thing smack in one’s face, it really doesn’t work for most site owners because it can interfere with the site design.

So first, let’s look at what images work best and how they can be incorporated into your design.

The images

There are several possibilities. First, is an image that mentions or stands for your secure certificate. If you pay the big bucks, you can get one that is linked to a page that also verifies the secure certificate.  That can be up to 5 times the cost of the basic secure certificate though, so it’s a decision any cart owner has to face.  Is it worth it?  I don’t claim to know the answer to that but I do feel like that money can be better spent on something else if your funds are tight.

Nearly every secure certificate has some image that you can use. I buy my certificates thru Rapidssl.com which is a Geotrust.com (one of the big boys) division. They supply a little image which has just recently changed:

There’s nothing to link to but it has all the necessary ingredients such as the word secured, the padlock and that really nifty note about the warranty. You could link it to the website but that’s no proof of anything and I think it’s kinda misleading since it doesn’t verify anything.

So when buying your secure certificate, you may need to stop and think about that.  Many times your hosting company is selling the certificates.  Ask them whose certificates are selling and if  there any images that you can use on the website.  Ask questions – don’t just take their word for it.

Next up is your payment processor.

Authorize.net has a verifiable seal you can post on the website. Click on it and it will tell you that, yes, they are the payment provider for that website.  I really like that because it’s free!  LinkPoint/FirstData has only a picture you can use. So again, ask questions of your payment provider.  You do need to know who your provider is, obviously; however, many website owners don’t actually understand the distinction between who you signed up with and the actual payment processor.

Payment processors such as Authorize.net and FirstData don’t normally sign up customers directly.  They provide the service and then many folks are out there selling those services. I use MerchantWarehouse.com for my own processor and recommend them because their rates are reasonable and they use Authorize.net. Who you sign up with does make a difference in rates by the way.

Then there is the Better Business Seal. They also provide a clickable image for verification.  This one can be put in the footer if you feel there’s too much space being utilized by that one.

Last, while you are at it, why don’t you put in the credit cards you accept? Just a small row of them will also let your customer know up front what choices they will have at checkout.

Where do you put those images?

They recommend the header. Ouch. You see how large the images are above. That can really take up some real estate.  I prefer to see the phone number and maybe the cart contents in addition to the primary navigation and logo in the header. So I might put the credit cards in the header (not a bad idea) but I never put those “trust features” in the header.

If you have a 2 column cart, a left column and main column, then you can put it on the front page in the content and box it off some way.  But the best way is to have it on every page, so I’m setting up sites as 3 column sites most of the time now. Then I use a sidebox entitled Secure Shopping to put those images in. I like having the sidebox header text of secure shopping because that reaffirms again and again the message you are trying to deliver.

But in Zen Cart I can also easily tinker with the CSS to make the entire sidebox disappear – except for the contents.  It no longer looks like a Zen Cart sidebox and still fulfills the function.

You can see my sidebox in action on ZenCartDelia.com. Also, I’ve provided a free mod for the Zen Cart sidebox as a reward to you for reading this post!