Opening Keynote: The Four Pillars of Building Instant Trust Online with Tim Ash
By: Wendy Roe
It’s Friday and we’re all excited to be here at the Tower Theatre for conference day of Bend WebCAM 2011. We’re lucky to have Tim Ash, CEO of SiteTuners, kicking off the big day today with the opening keynote.
As a reminder, here’s a recap of the live bloggers we have today: Todd Mintz (Left Brain), Hallie Jannsen (Right Brain), Wendy Roe (Hybrid).
Interested in keeping up with the conference? Be sure to follow @bndwebcam on Twitter, Bend WebCAM on Facebook and use the hashtag #bwc11. Each workshop has it’s own #hashtag as well!
TOPIC:
Websites and landing pages face very real trust issues – they are a scary and uncertain unknown to most visitors. Before people will act or transact, their concerns and anxieties must be alleviated. But how can you do this online when you only have seconds to establish trust? In this provocative keynote, SiteTuners CEO Tim Ash, will show you how to effectively use the Four Pillars Of Trust and smooth the way to your online conversion goals.
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Oh my, Tim’s giving out dollar bills for honesty for the audience – WOOT! Okay, let’s get started:
“it’s not about technology, it’s about the brains in our heads”
Building Instant Trust Online
- People form a first impression of a landing page in : 1/20 of a SECOND.
- What do you know about your visitors? Not much…technology, yes. But we really don’t know who they are…and they don’t know about us.
- Appearance – we make instantaneous decisions on quality (he’s showing examples of some really BAD sites – yikes!) Our philosophy of design is a “zen-like simple.” Once they land on your site, make the call to action, dead simple.
- Transactional Assurances – Will I really get what I ordered? Did I get the best deal? Will I get on a spam list? Will someone take my identity? Adding assurances of security (security seals) are so important. 15% will see those assurances if they are at the bottom of the page. Why bury those assurances? Have your forms of payment and delivery, data security and privacy policy and any other policies and guarantees more visible.
- Authority – 40% higher conversion on the ‘Real Age’ quiz when credible media mentions were visible. Another example with the logos of ‘satisfied clients.’ The logos had 58% higher conversion rate on their “instant quote” page. Another example of getting lead generation for a debt collection company. They had trust symbols on the bottom of the page and with help, they moved the trust conversions to the right side and more visible. He’s making the argument that it DOESN’T actually matter what they are, just that you have them. Borrow trust from better-known brands. Find them with reviews and awards, marquee clients, media mentions, trade associations.
- Consensus of Peers – We all have our cultural tribes; we are influenced by our peers. Reviewing the dynamics of group decision and peer pressure to make decisions. Including social media sharing (especially with e-commerce for your products) via reviews and a Facebook like page is super helpful. He’s reviewing a Pandora/Facebook integration experience where you see which friends like what music. Now on to Firefox. Firefox has a number of total downloads downloading the browser to offer “social proof.” Support automatic compliance by demonstrating “social proof.” include objective large numbers and likeness.