Top Ways to Boost Brand Credibility Through Your Website

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, once said, “A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person”. The brand defines the company’s identity. A customer becomes loyal because he/she has an emotional connection with the brand.

• Why Branding Design Depends on Graphic Design so Much

Some Eye-Catching Branding Statistics:

• 73% of customers prefer a brand due to excellent customer service
• Brand consistency helps increase revenue by 23%
• 70% of the brand managers target audience rather than sales
• 89% of the shoppers are loyal to brand values

The figures are enough to portray the importance of the brand and its credibility.

An example may be sufficient to give a clear picture.

What do you immediately think of when the following subjects come up?

Selecting Web Securities – SSL Certificates, Norton Antivirus Security

Picking shoes – Nike, Reebok, Adidas

Mobile – iPhone, Samsung

Laptops – Lenovo, Apple, HTC

All these popular brands have succeeded in creating a lasting impression in customer’s minds due to their quality of the product, their longevity, customer service, etc. In a nutshell, all the above factors lead to an improvement in brand credibility.

How Does One Define Brand Credibility?

Brand credibility is the belief and trust which a customer has in the product information of the brand. Their faith in the brand increases when the brand promises are delivered, which helps create strong brand credibility.

Brand credibility and customer’s choice to purchase the brand product go hand in hand.

Brand credibility depends on many factors, like product consistency, positive testimonials, positive customer reviews, etc., but the main factors which motivate the customer to opt for the brand’s products are:

• The trustworthiness of the brand – Ensure that your audience has full faith in your website and brand
• Expertise – Ensure that your site visitors believe that the brand has the ability (expertise) to deliver as promised
• Visually Appealing and Attractiveness of the brand – Ensure that your brand has attractive and appealing visuals to create a positive and robust image

In short, your brand sales and success solely depend on your brand credibility.

Importance of Fostering Trust When Promoting a Commercial Website (Why Trust Matters When it Comes to Websites)

Trust, faith, credibility, all these names are hard to achieve but are very useful in an online business’s success. Be it a new venture or an old enterprise, the way customers discern your company plays a pivotal role in your business’s success.

In online business, security breaches are prevalent and are increasing at alarming rates. Research indicates that 88% of the companies face spear-phishing attacks in 2019. This shakes customer’s trust, and they tend to sway away from your company if it lacks credibility.

Customers never prefer websites that are not protected or can’t ensure data privacy.

Factors that show how the trust factor can reap good benefits for your website:

• Increased Conversion Rates: Trust is the main criteria of any business. If visitors trust your site, they are bound to purchase from your website, and this, in turn, leads to increased conversion rates.
• Feedback Sharing: When users who have opted for your products find them worth their penny, their faith in the brand increases, and they tend to share positive reviews. Reliability of the product helps in improving credibility by word-of-mouth publicity and the sharing of positive feedback. 
• Social Media Proof: Social media presence plays a vital role in the credibility factor. Consistency of the brand and its products lead to positive feedback, which many users like to share on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

Research indicates that social media influence buying decisions of approximately 71% of the users.

Apart from trusting your website, your site credibility also needs to be maintained. Below are a few factors that improve site credibility.

Ways to Boost Brand Credibility:

1. Enable SSL on Your Site

A Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate is a digital certificate that secures your website and site data with encryption. It establishes a secure connection between the browser and the server, which helps in maintaining data privacy. This is vitally important in today’s digital landscape.

Reliable SSL Certificate providers like GlobalSign, DigiCert, AlphaSSL, Cheap SSL Shop are a one-stop destination for all your web security requirements. Not only do they provide SSL certificates at attractive rates, but they are also quick in offering web securities and have an excellent customer support team to guide customers.

SSL certificates enable HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) in the address bar and a URL padlock. Visitors first see these trust signals before approaching any website and hence always enable an SSL certificate on your website, to build customer’s trust and secure their data.

Depending on the certificate type, Certificate Authorities verify and authenticate the website and business before issuing an SSL certificate, and hence sites having SSL certificates portray trust, confidentiality, and data integrity.

2. Get the Right Security Trust Seals

Apart from trust indicators like HTTPS and padlock, most SSL certificates provide free trust seals to ensure the website’s authenticity.

A Trust Seal or a trust badge is a seal permitted by an entity and displayed on the website. They showcase the trust and authenticity of the website.

Different popular approval stamps (trust logos) are used for varied purposes.

• Seals like McAfee, Norton, Site Lock, etc., are the most trusted seals which guarantee the site visitors that the site they are approaching is secure.
• Mastercard, PayPal, Visa, etc., are the trusted seals for making online payments.

Please pick up an ideal seal for your business and assuage your customers’ worries about their data privacy. These badges can help boost your brand credibility.

Note: It’s essential to display these trust badges only when their ideal requirements are met and the concerned institutions grant them because it is an offence to show them in an unauthorized way.

3. Speed Your Way to Better Credibility

Every second counts. It’s proven that a potential customer waits for 3 seconds for a website to load. More than three seconds of website loading time can sway visitors away from your site.

Top-notch brands, excellent products, and attractive offers are in vain if the website load time is high, affecting brand credibility.

It damages the brand reputation and negatively influences your sales figures.

Statistics by Hobo SEO Services indicate that:

• 53% of the users abandon sites taking more than 3 seconds to load
• Abandonment rate increases to 87% if site load time increases by 2 seconds, i.e., 5 seconds load time
• In case the page load time is 6 seconds or above, the bounce rate lies between 106% to 123%.

shows how the speed factor affects brand credibility:

• 46% of the users don’t revisit low performing sites
• 1-second delay lessens customer satisfaction by 16%
• 67% of the customers abandon an online purchase due to slow speed

In short, a slow page loading site speed affects customer loyalty, SEO ranks, sales, etc., apart from credibility.

4. Keep Your Website Looking Professional

Professionalism is the key to a trustworthy website. Old designs and formats, poor content, and outdated patterns, dull colors, etc., all can be a heavy boulder against your brand credibility.

A visually appealing website, attractive colors, latest design formats, relevant content, and user-friendly website will make it look more professional and attract a vast target audience.

More tips:

• Choosing the appropriate font and background
• Uploading a favicon to strengthen the brand image
• Keeping large visuals (images)
• Making it organized, and error-free
• Making it mobile-friendly

Final Thoughts

Credibility is essential for the success of any business. It’s not complex to achieve the same, but small steps taken for the same may lead to a successful digital empire.

I hope the above-mentioned small tips help you boost your brand credibility, improve conversion rates, and lead to your digital empire’s success.