My friend Jeff posted on Facebook about a new kid-friendly visual search engine, commenting the search engine was launched by Google.
I was intrigued. And wanted to learn more.
Years ago, I worked in my son’s grade school library. Despite restrictions by the school district’s technology department for certain Internet sites, there were always searches that came up with questionable results for our students.
Off I went to explore the new site my friend talked about.
Unfortunately, what I found disappointed me.
I guess I should rephrase that: what I didn’t find disappointed me.
What I Look for When I First Visit a Website
There are many articles that discuss how website visitors make a decision about your site in a few seconds:
- Look at your design
- Scan your content quickly
- View your photos/images
before deciding if your site is trustworthy.
I do that, too.
And then I look for three other things that add credibility and trustworthiness to the site.
They’re crucial factors that lead me to trust a company with my email address for their mailing list or whitepaper.
Or for a purchase of their product and services.
If I don’t find the information I expect, my sense of trust for that business or organization disappears. Which may happen on your website when you’re missing essential pieces of information that add trust and credibility to your site.
For the site my friend Jeff mentioned, I couldn’t find the three items I use to judge the trustworthiness of a site.
Read on to learn what three things you can implement today to make your site more trustworthy:
1. Share who’s behind the company
Make it personal. Who are the founders of the company? Give their names and background on who they are and why they started the company.
If it’s a small company, share the team member names and photos; make it easy for them to choose your company.
Don’t force your website visitors to dig for information about your company and who you are.
The Internet makes it easy for people to find services and products they want; make it easy for them to choose your company.
In additional to adding trust, learning about the people who work at a company helps website visitors to feel more connected.
Take steps to provide a more personal connection with your website visitors so they know you’re not a business in name only.
2. Add a physical address for the company or organization
Including the physical address improves your customer’s trust in your business.
Customers care about who they’re dealing with. If you’re located in the same city or state where your customer lives, you reach more people who want to work with someone locally.
Make it easy for people to find your physical address and contact information.
Website visitors typically look on the About or Contact pages for contact information. Or they look in the footer, or perhaps the top of the web page.
I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve searched for a physical address, only to find it buried in the fourth screen of a company’s privacy policy.
3. Include more than one way to contact you
Make it easy for customers to contact you. Provide multiple ways to reach you.
And while contact forms, email addresses, and social media are great ways for customers to reach you 24/7, many customers prefer to talk with a “real person.”
Consider adding your phone number, along with times you can be reached by phone. You don’t want customers expecting you to answer the phone at 11pm on Saturdays.
Unless, you have regular business hours at that time!
Summary
Make it easy for website visitors to trust your website. Provide information about who you are and how to reach you in easy-to-find locations.
For the site I mentioned at the beginning of the story, it didn’t include any information about who was behind the company, no physical address, nor any way to contact the company.
I told my friend Jeff I didn’t consider it to be a trustworthy site. In addition, the site wasn’t launched by Google; it was using Google’s Safe Search.
Until the company updates their site, I won’t be recommending it as a kid-friendly search engine.
