How to Make Your WooCommerce Website More Trustworthy

Last updated - November 24, 2023

When it comes to eCommerce, trust is everything. If your users don’t trust you enough, they will abandon your website without any second thoughts. And, they will come back to your site.

Wondering how many customers you have lost because of not coming across as a trustworthy eCommerce brand? I’m sure you are!

Trust is not just to increase your conversions. It can do a lot more. Trust can increase the number of repeat customers, create numerous brand advocates, increase your order value, and help with word-of-mouth marketing.

According to a study by Salesforce, 95% of customers are likely to be loyal to your WooCommerce brand if you build trust with them. Also, 88% of customers are likely to speed more on brands that they trust.

Make Your WooCommerce Website More Trustworthy

In short, without trust, you cannot go far in your eCommerce business. In this brief guide, we are going to talk about just that.

Let’s look at some actionable techniques that you can start implementing on your WooCommerce website right away. These techniques will help you build immense trust with your prospects and customers.

Table of Contents

1. Display Abundant Social Proof Wherever Possible

Did you know that 88% of consumers trust user reviews as much as personal recommendations?!

When consumers initially land on your WooCommerce site, they would go through a lot of confusion trying to make a decision about your brand and products. And, when they spot social proof on your website in the form of good reviews, ratings, trust badges, testimonials, etc., it will completely change their viewpoint about your products.

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Social proof is a powerful tool to change users’ purchase decisions in your favor. So, you must always be on the lookout for opportunities where you can display social proof. Here are a few pointers to help you with it:

Always, always, put up reviews and ratings for all your products. Ensure that these are visible prominently. You can also add these on your homepage.
Use trust badges on your homepage and product pages. Trust badges can be in the form of a money-back guarantee, security badges, SSL certificates, third-party endorsements, and many more.
If possible, put up text or video testimonials on your homepage. Try to add these testimonials above the fold to maximize their effect.
User-generated content is a great way to display social proof. You can do this by putting up content created by your customers on your WooCommerce homepage.
Lastly, leverage influencer marketing for generating social proof. Team up with relevant and trustworthy influencers in your industry. Add their images, testimonials, videos, etc. on your homepage.

Here is a list of best product review plugins for WooCommerce.

2. Make your WooCommerce Site Accessible to Everyone

Accessibility is a huge factor in building trust. Unfortunately, very few acknowledge the disabled population. This is appalling, considering the fact that 1 in every 5 Americans is known to be disabled in some way.

Disabilities come in various forms such as physical, cognitive, or even emotional disabilities. Such people wouldn’t be able to access your WooCommerce website as any other normal person would do. If you don’t work on your website’s accessibility, you are instantly breaking the trust of almost 20% of your visitors.

Moreover, imagine if such dissatisfied customers put up bad reviews about your site on social media platforms. Or even worse, what if you get an expensive ADA lawsuit slapped on your brand.

If you think that your website accessibility is on-point, then think again. Studies have shown that most websites on the internet are not ADA compliant.

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If you have been ignoring website accessibility or doing a sloppy job at it, you are essentially inviting a bad reputation for your brand. So, what do you do now?

Include accessibility-solutions while designing your WooCommerce website. This would include things such as screen-reader adjustments, UI design changes, and keyboard and mouse adjustments. This will ensure that your web accessibility is taken care of right from the design phase.
Use an affordable web accessibility solution like accessiBe that will automatically scan your WooCommerce site and make changes. This will ensure that your site always stays ADA compliant. Since you’re running on WordPress, you can use accessiBe’s accessibility plugin to get the job done.
Encourage an environment of inclusivity amongst your employees by educating them about accessibility and ADA policies.

3. Provide Comprehensive Product Descriptions

Remember the last time you shopped from an online store. How did you decide whether to buy a product or not? You must have gone through the product description and images.

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While purchasing a product, the biggest contributor to building trust is how specific and accurate your product descriptions are. Here are a few best practices to follow:

Use high-quality and professional product images. Also, make sure to include product images from different angles.
Give the exact product specifications wherever applicable. These might include dimensions, materials, ingredients, or anything similar. 100% transparency is key to building trust.
Focus on writing good quality product copy for all your products. Describe them in the best light possible, while ensuring accuracy.
You can take your product quality up a notch by using technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality to provide an almost-real experience of your products.

Know more about great WooCommerce product descriptions.

4. Offer a Hassle-Free Payment Process

Payment is the most crucial and risky element of an eCommerce funnel. If you have done all things right, but your payment process looks shady, then you are not going to get good conversions.

Here are a few ways to ensure that you offer a trustworthy payment process:

Use a trustworthy payment gateway provider. that makes your payment process look professional and not-so-spammy.
Disclose all costs upfront. Do not wait until the last checkout page and then disclose some hidden charges. Consumers hate hidden costs and would immediately abandon your WooCommerce site.
Try to offer free shipping if it is feasible for you. Shipping charges can be an objection to most shoppers and offering free shipping would eliminate that.
Make your payment workflow as easy and simplistic as possible. Do not make your consumers go through 10 pages before making a purchase.
Lastly, consider speeding up your payment process by ensuring that you have a fast-loading website. Users today are impatient and would exit your site if it gets stuck during the payment process.

5. Focus on Extensive Customer Service

eCommerce shoppers have a thousand confusions and objections running around in their mind. We all have experienced that. Questions related to products, shipping process, payment process, etc. keep cropping up in our minds while shopping.

If your WooCommerce site visitor is having similar queries and you are not available to solve their objections, they will immediately move on to our competitors’ site. Hence, round-the-clock customer service is very, very important for your WooCommerce site.

It is not always feasible to employ 24/7 customer service people to cater to your consumers. Hence, you should consider integrating AI chatbots with your WooCommerce website.
If you want to take your customer service to the next level, you can integrate live chat options with your website. This way, you’ll notice a massive increase in conversions and less cart abandonment issues.
You should also include hassle-free return, exchange, and refund policies for your products. These will, again, remove lots of barriers that are stopping your customers from making the final purchase.

Read more about the best customer support plugins for WooCommerce.
Understand more about customer support through multiple channels.

6. Personalize all Possible Touchpoints and Interactions

Today, one-size-fits-all marketing doesn’t;t work as effectively as it would have worked a decade ago. People want to feel more valued and want you to cater to their specific needs. This is where extensive personalization plays a crucial role.

By personalizing touchpoints, you can completely change your prospects’ minds and turn them into loyal customers. This will help to build trust amongst your target audience.

Here are a few ways to offer personalized experiences for your WooCommerce store:

Offer personalized product recommendations on product pages and the homepage of your website. These recommendations can be based on viewer history or product history. This will not only help with upsells and cross-sells, but will also turn one-time-customers into repeat customers.
Sending personalized emails to your email subscribers. This will increase brand affinity and ultimately lead to increased trust.
You should also try to personalize all your customer service interactions. Ensure that your chatbots and live chat conversations cater to the exact queries that the users are facing, instead of seeming vague and generic.

7. Add Trust Building Elements to your Website Design

Apart from the major elements of trust-building such as social proof, trust badges, and product descriptions, you can also include other smaller trust-building elements to your WooCommerce site.

Using an SSL certificate is a must if you want your WooCommerce site to seem trustworthy. Without that, people will be prompted with a message that says “This website might not be secure”.
Keep your UI clean and minimalistic. Do not clutter your homepage and product pages with unnecessary, distracting elements. Too much clutter might make your website look spammy.
Avoid too many ads and pop-ups. Especially the ones that distract and irritate your users. You know exactly how that feels like.
Ensure that your website copy is more conversational and humanized. Avoid things that might sound robot-like or dry. You need to invoke positive emotions in the minds of your visitors so that they start trusting you.

8. Focus on SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website in such a way that it ranks for organic Google searches. But, how is SEO related to trust?

SEO plays a major role in building trust because ranking on the top of Google searches automatically adds credibility and trustworthiness to your websites. People always trust Google, no matter what. Hence, if you rank on the first page of Google, then you are instantly deemed trustworthy.

You can work on various SEO techniques for your WooCommerce site. Some of them being on-page SEO, link-building, content marketing, and similar more. SEO takes time to show tangible results. Hence, it is better to start now, if you haven’t already.

Wrapping it Up

To conclude, we can say that trust is not something that can be built in a day. Building strong, trustworthy relationships with your WooCommerce site visitors might take you a lot of time. The tips given in this article to make Your WooCommerce website more trustworthy can be an excellent starting point for your journey ahead.

All these tips are actionable and you can start working on them right away. So, what are you waiting for?