Unfortunately, purchasing a product on the Internet can sometimes be risky, and when your only point of contact is a web site, it can be scary for people to hand you their credit card information even if they want your product.

It is important to eliminate as many doubts as you can.

In addition to using SalesBully to motivate your visitors to take action on their first visit, risk reversal techniques reduce the fear people have when dealing with your company by increasing trust and credibility in you, your product and your company. Combining them can have a dramatic result.

Display contact information
Can people contact someone if they have a problem? Just displaying a phone number can increase sales, even if the people buying never phone the number. Also include your mailing address.

Display testimonials and reviews
Showing links to independent reviews, and displaying testimonials further increase the social proof motivator.

Offer a guarantee and use other risk reversal terms
Displaying text like “100% satisfaction guaranteed” and “hassle free returns” decrease the fear that people will be stuck with a product that doesn’t work. Use a hand-written signature on the guarantee.

Tell people about availability
Let them know when they are going to get the product and how it will arrive. For example, it may be obvious to you that an e-book isn’t a physical product and that it is instant on-line delivery, but it won’t be to everyone.

What happens if there is problem?
Make sure it is very clear what you will do if there is a problem. Let them know what your support system is like and what kind of response times they can expect. How long will they be able to get support after they purchase? Is it free, or do you charge extra for support?

Add other ways to order
Even in this day in age, adding in phone, mail and even fax orders will increase your conversions.

Who are you?
Let people know that real people work here by using your name, pictures, voice and video.

Use trust symbols
Put recognized logos on your site.

a) Put your secure server symbol like the Verisign seal on your order pages if you are taking credit card orders yourself. Spend the extra money to get the logo that has your company name embedded in it.

b) Also put the logos of the credit cards you accept, as well as other payment methods you accept, like PayPal, even if you are not processing credit cards yourself.

c) Put a HackerSafe logo at the top of every page in your site. They have run split-tests on over 500 web sites with and without the logo and have an average conversion increase of 14%, just by adding their logo. This link gets you 20% off of HackerSafe.

d) Become a member of the Better Business Bureau and put their logo on your site, next to the HackerSafe logo.

e) Consider adding other logos like TrustE’s web seals association logos, and logos for any awards you have won.

Add value
Offer free shipping and bonus gifts, training, related products etc.

Product shots
Display pictures, screen shots and videos of the product so people can visualize what they are getting, which also creates an emotional attachement.

Reduce steps to purchase
Every step between someone arriving on your page and buying your product decreases conversions. Only use a squeeze page if you get more value out of the list than the customers you are losing by using a squeeze page, or if the squeeze page helps you customize the sales page enough to increase conversions.

Streamline your order process
Don’t collect unnecessary information in your order process and use a one-page order form if possible. If you aren’t shipping a product and don’t plan to mail physical promotions to people, then you don’t really need their address.

Remind people on the checkout form
Put a short reminder of what the person is getting on the checkout form.

Put a customer link on your home page
Not only does this help your existing customers feel at home, but it also lets your prospects know that they will be able to easily find where to go once they become customers and that you are interested in your customers beyond the initial transactions.

Display policies when taking action
Wherever you ask for an email (including in your order form) let people know what you will do with it. Also, show your billing, return, shipping, affiliate, acceptable use policies etc, as appropriate, and in context.

Add additional languages
China has a population of 1,321,851,888 and grew by 18% in 2005 and 2006, and 23% in 2006. It is projected to overtake the U.S. in total number of Internet users in a few years. Few marketers target other cultures, which means there isn’t much competition, however cultural and political problems can make it more difficult. As well, can you offer support in other languages as well as translating your site.

Split-test everything you can
You never know what really increases or decreases conversions unless you run A/B split-tests. For instance, perhaps adding an address into your order form actually will increase conversions because it makes it look like you are interested in a longer-term relationship with the customer. Or perhaps it will reduce them because people don’t like to give up that extra information. The only way to know is to split-test, keeping in mind the results may be different for every site.

I hope you found this helpful. We are aiming to put most of these techniques at work on all our sites.

If you have other ideas to share, or comments on the above ideas, please add your comments below.

Thank you!

John Reel.
President of Green Web Services Inc.

Posted by John Reel on Friday, July 13th, 2007 at 12:54 am.