For small businesses that sell online, the importance of protecting customer data is a given. Unfortunately, the best security and privacy practices in the world are useless unless you first secure the customer's trust.
For small businesses that sell online, the importance of protecting customer data is a given. Unfortunately, the best security and privacy practices in the world are useless unless you first secure the customer's trust.
1. Third Party Verifications
One of the first hurdles small businesses face online is obscurity; new customers are unlikely to have any previous knowledge of them, good or bad. “That's where trust marks come in,” says Fran Maier, CEO of TRUSTe.
Generally speaking, trust marks are linked graphics certifying that a site's security or privacy practices have been independently verified. TRUSTe's Privacy Service for small businesses helps e-commerce sites develop a custom privacy policy that spells out how the business safeguards customer information. The service starts at $49 per month.
2. Originality - Visual Impression
Before visitors notice a trust mark, they make a snap judgement about a site's overall design and appearance--within 50 milliseconds, according to a 2006 study published in the journal Behavior and Information Technology. In order to appear legitimate and trustworthy, a site needs to create a first impression that's both professional and original.
Professional means that the design meets certain standards in its typography, layout and style. When visitors see a site takes a lackadaisical approach to these standards, it tends to be a red flag which would have consumers assume that the business might take a “don't-care” attitude toward other things as well--customer privacy, for instance.
The second half of that first impression is originality. Originality is a particular problem for business owners who request designs that too closely resemble their competitors. These risk of being confused with phishing scams fraudulent sites or e-mails that mimic legitimate businesses in an attempt to steal financial information. Too much imitation of other e-commerce sites will lead consumers to think whether or not your site is legitimate.
For businesses that can't yet afford to purchase a professional design, plenty of sites offer free, attractive templates that can be modified for far less than it costs to create an original design. However, if you are going into a business selling a product or service it isn't recommend that a free template design be the permanent solution.
3. Good Copy
"Content is King" is one of the web's most familiar and long-standing edicts. But what many shops spend less time on is their copy.
Carolyn Wood, founder and lead copywriter of Pixelingo, says that badly written copy can give visitors a bad impression of a site almost as quickly as bad design but on a whole it comes down to user experience which determines whether a visitor or consumer feels safe especially when making online payments which requires them to enter their credit card information.
