6 things that make your website appear untrustworthy
Trust is one of the most essential ingredients for any business. If you have a trusted brand image, people will feel comfortable choosing you for their legal services. This is the case whether you’re talking about your real-world brand experience or your digital/online brand. It’s that simple.
When you consider that legal services carry a lot of weight and the quality of service can greatly impact someone’s life, it’s not hard to see why trust is more important in this industry than in many others.
However, a lot of law firms are eroding consumer trust without even realising it due to a poor-quality website.
When you consider that every 3 in 4 people base the credibility of a business on the experience on their website, it’s clear this is something you need to pay careful attention to.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the things that may make your law firm’s website appear untrustworthy.
1. A sparse website with insufficient content
The first place to start is with a lack of information. If your website doesn’t contain a lot of content, people may assume you’ve got something to hide or, equally as bad, you don’t know very much about your product or service!
People like to know who they’re working with. They want to see the team behind the brand name. They want to know about your credentials. Of course, you need to display this information in an attractive manner that’s easy to digest. However, don’t simply omit big chunks of information about your business.
2. Poor design - UX matters!
Did you know that 94% of a user’s first impressions on a website are related to the design?
Researchers believe that website visitors will often make a decision on trustworthiness based on what the website looks like alone.
If your website looks outdated and it takes a while to load, your credibility will tumble.
Some of the signs of a poor website from a design perspective include:
- inconsistent fonts and colour schemes;
- tiny fonts (almost illegible);
- flashing letters and outdated graphics;
- poor-quality images and a lack of original visual media;
- a website that’s not mobile-friendly;
- scrolling, blinking, or spinning text;
- unclear navigation;
- a poor overall user experience;
- a website that takes a long time to load.
3. A lack of customer testimonials
When looking for a business nowadays, we often spend time reading reviews and finding out what past clients have to say about their experience. If you attempt this and no feedback appears, it can feel like the business is either a scam or hasn’t had many customers, both of which can be a worry.
This is why it is critical to make sure you have plenty of customer testimonials on your website that potential clients can read.
Simply having these reviews is not enough, though. People are increasingly becoming wary of businesses that appear to write their own customer reviews. This is why it can help to install a widget that displays reviews that people have posted about your firm on independent review platforms. This will ensure site visitors that you have had no influence over what’s been written.
4. No SSL certificate
Online security is a big concern for people today. It seems that there’s news of a fresh data breach every week. Because of this, consumers are paying more attention to the security efforts online businesses are making.
While you may not take payments online, this doesn’t mean you don’t have any responsibilities. Potential clients will share personal contact information and details about their case with you, so you need to do everything in your power to protect this.
One of these approaches is to use an SSL certificate. This is a secure site certificate providing your site with an HTTPS prefix rather than the old HTTP. This means you will have an added encryption layer, which will protect login data and sensitive information from prying eyes. SSL certificates don’t cost a lot, so there’s no excuse for not having one.
5. Irrelevant and uninspiring images
Humans are visual creatures. We like to see images alongside our words. We like diagrams, illustrations, and other forms of visual media. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean you should simply use images for the sake of it.
All of your images need to do at least one of two things:
- Illustrate the narrative of your page; or
- Demonstrate your value proposition.
If you have irrelevant images throughout your website, it’s only going to confuse the viewer and dilute your brand image.
There are several stock image sites available for you to subscribe to. Some offer royalty-free images, and some are paid subscriptions. Both have a place, depending on what you’re after, your firm size and your budget
6. Asking website visitors for too much information
Gated content is an excellent data capture method. A lot of legal firms will create blog posts that are only for members, for example. Notably, these tend to be commercial firms (B2B rather than B2B). This means that website viewers need to share information to view the post. However, you do need to be careful that you don’t go too far with this and ask for an unreasonable amount of information about the individual.
If you ask for too much personal information, people will feel like you’re invading their privacy, and they’ll wonder why you need so much data about them in the first place.
Ultimately, it’s a bit of a balancing ask. After all, if you don’t ask for much information at all, your visitors may end up undervaluing your content. You need to make sure you don’t slip to either extreme. If you do, it will make your proposition appear less authentic, and your conversions will suffer as a consequence.
You also need to remember that with so much content available online nowadays, what is the potential your website visitor can find the information from your competitor without providing personal details?
How trustworthy is your legal website?
If you’re feeling unsure as to whether or not your legal website feels credible or you have noticed some of the signs we’ve mentioned above, please don’t hesitate to get in touch for more information. We’ve helped many legal firms drastically improve their online presence.
Contacting Social Hive
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