Your Website Design and the Trustworthiness of your business.

Your website design in Windsor is the first impression you make on potential customers online. You don’t have a messy, disorganized physical space because you know that it would make a poor impression on people. The same rules apply to your online space. Good web design is critical to convincing customers that you’re a legitimate business and they can trust you.

Small businesses have to overcome another hurdle: their size. Businesses like Amazon are well-known and receive automatic trust, small businesses have to prove themselves. If your website looks hasty, sloppy, or otherwise unprofessional, the trust won’t come. If it’s sleek, clean, and polished, that’s the first step to trust.

So how do you make sure that your website persuades people that you’re trustworthy?

Quality is important for Website Design in Windsor

There are tons of free website builders available. For the cost of nothing more than your domain name, you can create your own website design in Windsor. It’s tempting, and if you’re only writing a personal blog, it is definitely the way to go.

But for a professional business site, using a generic theme, and throwing together your own color schemes and navigation can be an enormous mistake. The money you save by doing it yourself could be easily lost in sales you don’t make.

Your site needs several things to look trustworthy and professional:

• Well-organized: Your site needs meaningful navigation that makes sense to the user. Cute and clever category names may seem like a good idea, but it’s better to be clear and use the kinds of words that your customers will be looking for.
• An appropriate color scheme: Bright, primary colors might be a good fit for a daycare center, but they are wildly inappropriate for a funeral home. Dark colors can make a site look cluttered. An appropriate color scheme conveys the kind of business you are.
• The right style: Fun, warm, welcoming, flat, minimalist, professional – there are many styles for a business website, choosing the right one can ensure that customers believe they can trust you.
• Attention to detail: Broken links, typos, and other mistakes look sloppy and careless. When people see mistakes, they wonder if you pay attention to the other details of running a business. How can they trust you with their credit card or other personal information?

As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Your site needs to make the best first impression possible. Here is our complete blog/guide to a good website design.

Easy to Find Information

Consider the reasons you visit a website. What kinds of things do you look for? Most people look for things like:

• Business hours
• Address and phone number
• Email address
• Pricing information
• Return and shipping policies

There may be other industry-specific information that applies to your business. Here is another blog about what to include at the top of your website. You do want to think about what the most common information is that people would want to know about your business. Make sure that information is available on your website. It also needs to be available without requiring someone to log in, provide an email address, or personally contact you to get it. Having a user login to get common information will decrease your trustworthiness.

Information that is complete, correct, and current

A blog without a new post in months or years or outdated product information indicates a lack of concern. If your website still wishes customers a Merry Christmas on July 4th, customers may assume that you’re no longer in business.

You want most of your site to be evergreen content – information that doesn’t generally change regardless of the passage of time. You also want to make sure that you offer plenty of relevant information about what you do, why customers should choose you over the competition, and clear expressions of why they should trust you. Include things like:

• Customer testimonials
• Photos of before and after, if you offer services such as landscaping, housecleaning, cooking or baking
• Tips and tricks that apply to your business – for example, a moving company could include tips on how best to pack for a successful, smooth move. A catering company could include information on how to ask about food allergies or what kind of menu might be suitable for a variety of events.

A good website designer can help you determine what other things might be unique and relevant to your business that you could include to increase your trustworthiness.

Connections

Connections work several ways when it comes to your website. You need to connect with your customer, obviously, but you also need connections around the web. Connections to other websites are the online version of when a customer walks into a store and asks someone for a recommendation on where to eat, and that store owner recommends your restaurant. In the same way multiple recommendations from that store owner increases your business, the more links you have to other sites, the more trustworthy you appear to be.

Finding a quality website designer and website design in Windsor that you can work with to create a website that is beautiful, functional and trustworthy may take a little time, but it’s worth it. The right website design  can make or break your business. If your looking for a website design in Windsor, Ontario then give us a call or contact us today. We would love to help you succeed online.