Show, Don’t Just Tell: Using Visual Trust Signals to Increase Conversions

You can tell people you’re trustworthy. 

You can say you’re experienced. 
You can list your credentials. 

But online?
Words alone aren’t enough. 

If your website doesn’t visually reinforce trust, visitors hesitate. And hesitation kills conversions. 

In this episode, we’re talking about how to use visual trust signals to increase conversions without rewriting your entire website. 

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Transcript

Why Trust Fuels Conversions

Carrie Saunders 0:00

You can tell people you're trustworthy. You can say your experience. You can list your credentials. But online, words alone aren't enough. If your website doesn't visually reinforce trust, visitors will hesitate. And hesitation kills conversions. In this episode, we're talking about how to use visual trust signals to increase conversions without rewriting your entire website. This is a great extension to the previous podcast episode. I'll also share one simple visual element that instantly increases credibility, and most small businesses completely overlook it. Let's dive in. Struggling to turn website traffic into real sales, you're not alone and you don't have to figure it out all yourself. Welcome to Smarter Online Business, the podcast for course creators, coaches, and e-commerce entrepreneurs who want their websites to convert visitors into buyers without the tech overwhelm. I'm your host, Carrie Saunders, a website strategist and conversion expert with over 20 years of experience. Each episode delivers simple, proven strategies to help you generate more revenue and make your website your smartest sales tool. Welcome back to the show. Today we're talking about how do we have our websites show, not just tell. We want to make sure we are increasing that visual trust signal so that we can increase conversions. So why does trust the real conversion driver? Before someone buys, they subconsciously ask these several things. Is this legitimate? Is this safe? Is this for someone like me? Will this actually work? Trust reduces perceived risk. I actually just went through this recently. I bought a um medical device that I wanted to have to help monitor my health. And that's where that's many of the questions. If I think about that purchase, I went through in my head. I want to re reiterate those again. I I thought in my head subconsciously, but now that I'm thinking about the process I went through when I was deciding what company to buy from, these are some of the questions I asked. Is this legitimate? Is this safe? Is this for someone like me? And will this actually work? Online, you don't have body language, you don't have tone, you don't have in-person energy. Your website has to do that for you. That's where it can get a little tricky. And visuals can do that faster than copy ever can. So then what visual trust signals? What are they actually? Visual trust signals are cues that reduce doubt without requiring explanation. And they're pretty instantaneous since they're visual. We process our visual things pretty quickly when it's um not words and we don't have to process those words. So let's talk about some examples of what I mean here. For one, client logos can really help. Logos are a very easily recognized um item, even if somebody's not familiar with that specific brand. Also, testimonials with photos. That makes the testimonials feel more real when you have photos, especially. Especially, please don't use stock photos here, especially when they're real photos and real people. Please don't use sock or AI photos for testimonials. That'll really degrade your trust there. Um, we also can use screenshots of real results. That is very compelling and very easy to recognize as a visitor. Also, media features can really help with that visual trust signal. Certifications or badges, if that applies to your business, can be a great trust signal too, and they're easy recognizable. Real team photos is also great. If your team is comfortable with this, having a real team photo of you and your team just really helps elevate your trust so quickly. Also, professional design and consistency. While we talk about on the podcast that design and prettiness isn't what really compels people to buy, having a nice design that you know is very clean can help minimize the distractions and build trust there. Again, what's on your website's many times more important than the design, but the design can add that next extra layer. Also, secure checkout icons can also help for some different types of customers who come and visit. So these are some really easy visual trust signals that we can be adding to your website. So they can help answer the question can I trust you? So, what are some common mistakes that I see when we're working on clients' sites and when we're helping them make their websites convert better? What I see consistently is that testimonials might be buried at the bottom or hidden off on another page, really hard to find. They may not have any faces anywhere on the site. It may just look like a newspaper, well, not even a newspaper, because newspaper usually has images of people, but it may have absolutely no faces and feel very cold and not trustworthy because we tend to recognize and be attracted to looking at pictures of people's faces. And stock images that feel generic, some stock images are fine and they can make sense and they can enhance your website, but it's when it's only stock images and not real photos, too, that can really start to degrade trust. Also, credentials listed without context. Sometimes we need to have a little context behind our credentials. So having that would be really helpful. Also, asking for money before building confidence. There are some places that just, I don't know, they they kind of do these pop-ups and they want you to just start buying, or they have this really high pressure countdown timer when you know it's fake and you know it's not really necessary. That can really degrade your um trust and your confidence in here. So, what's that visual element that most people overlook that I alluded to earlier? And it's your face, you, the business owner's face. People trust people, they don't trust logos, they don't trust taglines, they don't trust clever copy, they trust people. When they can see who's behind the business, that really helps build trust because they feel like they you are trusting them and then they are trusting you. It's kind of a mutual thing here. Even a simple professional photo increases perceived credibility dramatically. It doesn't have to be super fancy or a super expensive photo shoot, but just something that's professional looking of you, your face can really, you know, help your conversions a lot. So now that we've gone over some several different types of trust signals, where are some common places that we want to place those for maximum impact? Because placement can matter and strategic places can really help take it to that next step. So, first off, we want to have some trust signals above the fold. We want to be able to have them see one of those trust signals right away so that there's no doubt that they can start to trust you. We want to have them near major call to actions. So, say you have a high-ticket item and you have a call to action to, you know, maybe, maybe it's even to book a free call for that high-ticket item or to buy the high-ticket item. Having trust signals near that call to action can really help people not hesitate in clicking that button. Also, right before pricing sections can really help. That helps, again, remove the doubt before they see the pricing section. It can help boost your credibility before they see the prices. Also on checkout pages and about pages. Those two are really great places to put some of these trust signals and very important too. Also on the sales page before the ask, before you ask them to purchase. That can really help build trust and keep the trust credibility high while you're starting to ask for that sale. Trust should show up right before any hesitation naturally appears to your potential customer. So let's talk a little bit about why this works. Humans are wired for social proof. We really look for safety cues all the time. We don't even realize that we're doing it. Safety cues come from people looking at you directly in the eye and having a human conversation. And so part of what we're talking about here is how do we um bring that emotion to a website? And that's why we one of the things is we want to have real people's faces on there, particularly yours. We as humans also follow, tend to follow what other people's have validated. So that's where the testimonials and reviews come in. When we see other people have had success and had great experience with this product or service that you're selling, they're more compelled to trust your product or service because they see that other real people have also trusted it and also had great results. We also respond to faces and familiarity. And what I mean here is, you know, we are used human beings used to seeing other humans' faces. Plus, we also tend to want to be in a place or with people or with something that's familiar. So your website should reduce cognitive load. We want to make it easy, familiar, trustworthy. We don't want to increase cognitive load. As you reduce cognitive load, the more they're going to trust you. Trust signals lower the friction on purchase or interaction or doing that next action you want them to do. And lower friction increases those conversions. So that's what we're going for here. Is we really want to try to reduce the cognitive load, build that trust up, and reduce that friction. So then I want you to do after listening to this episode a mini trust audit. I want you to open your homepage and ask, can visitors see who's behind the business? Is there visible proof that others trust you? Does credibility appear before the call to action? Would you buy from the site if I didn't know you? That's kind of a tough one. Sometimes you might have to get a friend or a business friend to ask, you know, where you ask that one themselves. Would you buy from the site if I didn't know you? If the answer feels uncertain, your visitors will feel that too. We need to make sure these questions are certain and answered properly to make sure that our website converts great and that we are building that trust that is needed to bridge that gap between the online feel and the in-person feel. We want them to feel like they're there in person with you, the business owner. That's all we have for this week's episode of the Smarter Online Business Podcast. We hope you thoroughly enjoyed it. And be sure to rate us and review us on your favorite podcast app that helps spread the word to other entrepreneurs and online business owners just like you to help them make their website their best sales tool ever. And we will see you next week.