Best practices for placing TrustedSite trustmarks on your ecommerce site: A comprehensive guide

As shoppers progress through a site, different concerns arise when they move from a product page to the shopping cart to checkout. Each of these concerns needs to be addressed the moment they appear in order for the shopper to confidently move on to the next step and eventually complete the purchase.

Through A/B tests run by third-party agencies and our own research, we’ve learned what visitors are most concerned about at each stage in the buyer’s journey. We designed the TrustedSite system of trustmarks and certifications to ease each of these concerns one by one, clearing a smooth path from the first page they visit all the way through to a completed order.

To effectively address visitor concerns, the TrustedSite trustmarks need to be placed in strategic locations throughout your site. Follow these best practices for placing the trustmarks to ensure you’re getting the most out of your investment in the service.

Entrance Page

Visitors can enter your site through any of your pages. If a visitor learns of your site from a billboard, they might type in your URL and land on your homepage first. But if a visitor searches for a product you offer in Google, they may end up on one of your product pages first.

According to our research, when visitors first arrive on an unfamiliar site, over 65% have concerns about whether the business is legitimate and nearly 40% of them worry about viruses and malware. That’s why we suggest placing the TrustedSite floating trustmark on all pages of your site so that you can immediately establish trust with visitors, no matter which page they first arrive on.

Place the floating trustmark in the bottom right or left corner (the right corner has performed the best in tests), and make sure to give it enough space on the page–don’t let it overlap with other services you display in the bottom corners like help chatbots or Google Reviews.

The floating trustmark has worked well for Holabird Sports. Third-party testing showed a 16% conversion increase for the site.

Some sites might also benefit from adding the testimonials trustmark to the homepage for the visitors who arrive there first. The testimonials trustmark shows off your Issue-Free Orders rate along with positive words from your happy customers, which helps new visitors see that your business is legitimate. The trustmark looks best with 5-7 testimonials from your customers enabled to display within it. It also scales dynamically in width, so it works great with responsive page layouts.

For the most security conscious visitors who study sites with scrutiny upon their arrival, we recommend that you place our Certified Secure engagement trustmark in your site’s footer. This trustmark shows visitors that your site is free of viruses and malware. The footer is a great place to combine this trustmark along with those you might use from other sources such as BBB, but be careful to avoid “trustmark clutter.” A good rule of thumb is to use no more than three trust indicators in the footer. Be sure to also include your privacy policy and contact information in the footer to build trust further.

Product Page

When consumers view product pages on unfamiliar sites, 44% worry about whether you’ll fulfill their order. The Issue-Free Orders engagement trustmark addresses this concern by displaying the high rate of customer satisfaction your site has earned. Place this trustmark on product pages in the area where you include information like your return policy to show visitors that you’ve fulfilled a majority of orders without any issues. This trustmark can also be used in your site’s footer instead of the Certified Secure engagement trustmark.

Email Collection Forms

After visitors have spent some time on your site, you might display a popup that encourages them to exchange their email address for an incentive like a 10% discount or free shipping. Unfortunately, this causes over 57% of consumers to be concerned about receiving spam.A range of underlying fears can accompany this concern, from having their email sold to a third-party to getting too many unwanted emails. By adding the Spam-Free trustmark to your email collection forms, you can show visitors that they’ll only receive the content they signed up for.

Shopping Cart

When it comes time to review their shopping cart, visitors are strongly concerned about order fulfillment and the security of their contact and credit card information. These concerns can hold visitors back from progressing through the buyer’s journey–nearly 35% of consumers have abandoned a purchase due to order fulfillment concerns, and even more have abandoned a purchase out of fear that their credit card information would be stolen.

The banner trustmark allows you to address these concerns and more by highlighting up to 5 certifications your site has earned in a single trustmark, saving valuable space on the cart page. The banner scales dynamically in width, so it can be particularly useful in responsive page layouts.

You should also consider including the testimonials trustmark on the cart page so that visitors can confidently continue on to checkout knowing that you’ve satisfied many previous customers.

Account Creation

Before they begin the checkout process, you might ask customers to create an account so they can more easily find their purchase history later on. However, when asked to create an account over 55% of consumers have concerns about their contact information being stolen and 38% fear this prompt could indicate a phishing scheme.

The Secure Form engagement trustmark shows visitors that it’s safe to enter their personal information on your site. Place the trustmark on account creation or registration forms underneath the call-to-action button. You should also add the Secure Login engagement trustmark to your login pages to remind visitors that their data is safe when they return to their account in the future.

Checkout - Shipping Information

Sites often divide the checkout process into simple stages, asking customers to first provide their shipping information. We found that 44% of consumers have concerns about identity theft at this stage in the checkout process.

Use the Identity Protection trustmark to reassure visitors that they can safely share their shipping information to complete an order. This trustmark shows visitors that making a purchase may qualify them to receive complimentary insurance in the event that their identity is stolen. Place it in a location where visitors are likely to see it–like near the shipping information heading or the continue to next step button. Alternatively, you can use the banner trustmark to inform visitors about the identity protection insurance you offer along with the other certifications you’ve earned.

Checkout - Payment Information

Once customers get to the next step of the checkout process, over 70% say they are worried that their credit card information might be stolen.

Because this stage of the buyer’s journey has such high stakes, we recommend taking extra measures to communicate trust. One way that sites like Lensabl and DR-HO’S have done this is by combining the Secure Checkout engagement trustmark and Identity Protection trustmark.

When implementing this combination on the checkout page, the engagement trustmark is usually placed directly next to the credit card input field, while the Identity Protection trustmark is placed near the order total or checkout button.

Lensabl saw an 4.78% increase in revenue after fully implementing TrustedSite on their checkout page, showing customers that it’s safe to complete their purchase.

Order Confirmation

After completing an order, visitors can still have concerns. In fact, 60% reported having concerns about order fulfillment and 47% reported concerns about the security of their credit card information. To put these concerns at ease, we recommend placing the testimonials trustmark or the banner trustmark on the order confirmation page to remind customers that they are in good hands.

By following these guidelines for strategically placing TrustedSite trustmarks where visitor concerns arise, you can quickly alleviate doubt before they decide to abandon the purchase. And with more confident visitors spending more time on your site, you have a greater chance of getting more conversions!