A Trust Seals / Site Seals can be the difference between a conversion and a cancellation on your e-commerce website.
Think fast: would you do business with someone you didn’t trust?
This is your hard-earned money we’re talking about—you’re not going to fork it over to just anyone.
Trust is vital.
That’s never truer than if you’re running an e-commerce website. The internet is rife with hackers and cyber criminals. There are fake websites posing as legitimate ones, there are malicious third parties that prey on unencrypted information. And consumers are acutely aware of this.
The best way to provide them the assurance they need to do business with you is a Trust Seal or Site Seal.
What is a Trust Seal (Site seal)?
You’ve probably seen dozens of trust seals in your time surfing the internet, even if you’re not aware of it.
A trust seal is traditionally associated with SSL. It is given out by a Certificate Authority (CA) – the entity that issues the SSL certificate – as a way of saying, “this site has been verified by us and it is safe.”
There are many Trust Seals, pretty much every CA has one. But not all Trust Seals are created equal. While they all stand for the same thing, some are much more recognizable and have even been proven to boost conversions.
Choosing the right Trust Seal for website
At first-glance, when you’re buying an SSL certificate, the Trust Seal may seem like a superfluous detail. Of course, you’re going to use it, but what’s the difference between them?
Well, actually quite a bit.
Research done by the Baymard Institute says that 35.6% of internet users say the Norton Secured Seal, owned by Symantec, gives them the best sense of trust when they’re about to make an online transaction—far and away the best of the bunch.
There has also been considerable research done on just how much trust seals can improve conversions. Blue Fountain Media, for instance, reported a 42% increase in Sales after putting the Norton Secured Seal on their website. VirtualSheetMusic.com saw a 31% increase, and after switching to an Extended Validation SSL certificate gained 13% more on top of that. And, according to Symantec, Clean Energy Experts increased its conversion rate a whopping 137%.
You can’t afford Not to have a Trust Seal for website
As if the potential for conversions isn’t enough to convince you that you need to have a Trust Seal on your website, maybe this will: you might be losing sales if you don’t have one.
According to research done by Comodo, the largest CA in the world, 88% of US online shoppers say it is important for e-commerce sites to include a Trust Seal of some sort on their website, while 70% of shoppers had at some point cancelled a transaction because the site did not have a Trust Seal (SSL Seal).
If you’re operating an e-commerce site without a Trust Seal, you are literally leaving money sitting on the table.
The Costs Associated with a Trust Seal
When it comes to Trust Seals you get what you pay for. You can try to save money on one but chances are it will have a negligible effect on your sales. A good rule of thumb is the smaller your company – the less traffic you receive – the more important having a highly recognizable Trust Seal becomes.
Paying top dollar for a Trust Seal like Symantec’s may seem like a difficult pill to swallow, but it can significantly boost your sales and will even pay for itself in time.
According to a study done by Synovate, 94% of shoppers are likely to complete a purchase when a Norton Secured Seal is present at checkout, while 77% are more familiar with the Norton Secured Seal than competitor seals.
This is why displaying a Symantec (formerly VeriSign) Trust Seal on your website immediately inspires a level of trust and confidence in your customers and has been proven time and time again to be worth the cost.
Regardless of whether you choose to go top-shelf or pick a more economical option though, you can’t afford not to have a trust seal on your e-commerce website—unless of course, you don’t care about your bottom line.
