Adding seals and badges to your e-commerce or lead generation site can provide an instant boost in conversion rate. In this post, we’ll take a look at a few of the most common, highlighting a site that uses each one. As always, it is important to test whether these help or not for your given site- and to determine if they give you a ROI.
Equally important to testing the presence of seals, is to test where you position them on the page. In most of the examples below, the seal appears below the footer- which is possibly the worst place on the page if you actually want people to see it. These site owners would be smart to try moving the seals around, and in particular- put them near the call to action or checkout buttons.
1. Sitepal Talking Character – http://www.sitepal.com/
What it does:
SitePal is an easy-to-use and affordable speaking avatar solution that enables small businesses to enhance their web presence and improve business results with virtual speaking characters. With its ability to engage site visitors and reinforce a call to action, SitePal has been proven to increase site traffic, conversions, loyalty and sales.
2. McCafee Secure Site Seal – http://www.mcafeesecure.com/
What it does:
The McAfee Secure™ trustmark appears on more than 80,000 websites worldwide. Certified McAfee SECURE sites include some of the largest brands in retail ecommerce and brick and mortar retailing; as well as financial and non-profit institutions, manufacturers, universities, Fortune 500 corporations, and government agencies.
McAfee Secure certification is achieved by passing rigorous daily network security audits. The certification process is completed in six steps. The first three steps are the vulnerability audit itself; comprised of Dynamic Port Scanning, Port-level Network Services Vulnerability Testing, and Web Application Vulnerability Testing. The fourth and fifth steps are alerts whenever vulnerabilities are detected and remediation management using our extensive vulnerability management portal. The result is highly effective, pro-active security.
3. ControlScan Seal – http://www.controlscan.com
What it does:
ControlScan is an PCI compliance and security solutions company dedicated to understanding and meeting the needs of smaller merchants. Controlscan provide several different security seal products, including their “Verified Secure” and “GeoTrust” seal.
4. BBB Seal – http://www.bbbonline.org
What it does:
BBBOnLine’s mission is to promote trust and confidence on the Internet. BBBOnLine allows businesses with Web sites to display the BBB Accredited Business seal online following confirmation of their adherence to the BBB Code of Business Practices, including its online standard.
5. Verisign Secure Seal – http://www.verisign.com
What it does:
VeriSign is the leading Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Authority enabling secure e-commerce, communications, and interactions for Web sites, intranets, and extranets. The VeriSign Secured Seal is part of the VeriSign® SSL Service. SSL helps you deliver a secure and convenient way for your customers to interact with you over the Internet. When you display the VeriSign Secured Seal, your customers will recognize the most trusted security mark on the Internet and gain the confidence to complete their transactions with you.
6. Liveperson Chat - http://www.liveperson.com
What it does:
LivePerson humanizes the online experience, increasing sales, customer satisfaction and loyalty. More than 7,000 companies, including some of the largest and most-recognized global brands, use LivePerson’s real-time chat platform to communicate and build relationships with their customers on the Web.
7. Green Certified Site – http://www.co2stats.com/
What it does:
People want websites they visit to be eco-friendly. CO2Stats helps you attract and retain those visitors. CO2Stats is the only service that automatically calculates your website’s total energy consumption, helps to make it more energy efficient, and then purchases audited renewable energy from wind and solar farms to neutralize its carbon footprint. CO2Stats is easy to set up, and works with your existing web host!
8. Truste – http://www.truste.com
What it does:
Build trust and drive revenue with TRUSTe programs and services. Displaying the TRUSTe seal demonstrates that your site complies with our privacy best practices. Sign up and let consumers know they can trust you more than other businesses when it comes to online privacy and trust.
9. BillMeLater – http://www.billmelater.com
What it does:
Bill Me Later is a convenient and secure way to pay on the web or over the phone. Bill Me Later lets users pay without using a credit card. At checkout, provide your birthday and the last four digits of your social security number, accept the terms and your purchase is complete. It’s that easy! There are no codes to find or account numbers to remember.
If you are looking to increase conversions, 2 HUGE pieces to the puzzle are VeriSign Extended Validation SSL and the VeriSign Secured Seal.
The VeriSign Secured Seal (as you mentioned #5)
•The VeriSign Secured Seal is seen by over 100 million people a day on over 90,000 Web sites in over 150 countries.
•The VeriSign Secured Seal can increase online sales by 10%-36% – http://www.verisign.com/SSLcasestudies
•91% of online shoppers recognize the VeriSign Secured Seal
•86% of online shoppers feel more confident entering personal information on sites the using security indicators, such as a trust mark
•74% of U.S. Internet users identity theft as a primary fear
VeriSign Extended Validation SSL
•93% prefer to shop on sites with EV certificates
•97% are likely to share their credit card information on sites with the green EV bar, as opposed to only 63% with non-EV sites
•88% trust the name VeriSign on a site, as opposed to only 22% for the next most trusted SSL provider
•77% would hesitate completing a transaction on a site that once had the green address bar, but no longer does
•Dozens of measured uplifts from 11 countries ranging from 5%-87% – http://www.verisign.com/SSLcasestudies
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Allen !
Where do you get your numbers ?
VeriSign Extended Validation SSL
•93% prefer to shop on sites with EV certificates
•97% are likely to share their credit card information on sites with the green EV bar, as opposed to only 63% with non-EV sites
•88% trust the name VeriSign on a site, as opposed to only 22% for the next most trusted SSL provider
Last time I saw only 11% even knew there is a green bar and what it means ?
There are many trust seal scam sites out there.
Do your research.
give up prime real estate for an animated talking character? crazy.
Most of these seem like a good idea, but I have might doubts about the fake person widget. It kinda just seems like a novelty at this point in time. On the other side of that I feel the BBB Online is a great idea. It’s something that people have know for years and trust.
Allen apparently also realizes that 78% of statistics are made up on the spot, bah…
None of those things SHOULD make anyone like your site more, none of them actually make a difference whether your site is secure or not.
All they are is “images”, get that? a graphic, they do NOTHING.
A site’s security is in it’s code processing the forms and the protection setup on the server by restricting access and logging user actions. Of course, you can’t make that visible to users so stupid joe shmoe will always be happy when they see a picture that says they are safe…
The point that must be remembered however is that these are just labels. I have seen websites rip them off before without the support of the supports listed.
Some of the streaming supports are also just annoying and can lag your website badly.
Be cautious.
It is important to pick and choose from among all the programs that exist as too many badges can lead to confusion and an abandoned shopping cart.
Among the better recognized brands online are Visa, TRUSTe and VeriSign. A good — and reasonable — list.
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Isn’t this also called the Lemming principles? These are really great info on what needs to have on a web site to gain the trust of your customer.
The seals work – though I haven’t seen data to support the live help (either actual chat with people or with the #1 option above). To me its a nuisance, real people ones put me into a que, the other one in option #1 doesn’t help me convert but frustrates. Do you have any data to support those two?
These are really great info on what needs to have on a web site to gain the trust of your customer.
Of course, you can’t make that visible to users so stupid joe shmoe will always be happy