Why Your Website Looks Untrustworthy

A website is an information database, online storefront, and communication platform rolled into one. It’s capable of growing customer bases, broadening brand recognition, and bringing more success than ever to a business. That said, your website must entice visitors to stay, know more about your brand, and explore your offerings. However, certain elements can make your website look “sus,” causing what you don’t want: high bounce rates.

Top Five Signs of an Untrustworthy Website

Having a site that converts begins with recognizing the signs of a bad website. If you notice the following on any of your pages, you might want to think about website redesign, web content overhaul, or building a new site from scratch.

1. Misspellings, Grammatical Errors, and Poor Writing

In a study of over 5,000 website visits, bounce rates are 85% higher on landing pages with typos. Unfortunately, according to EditorNinja, 93.37% of e-commerce pages have possible grammar errors, and 91.15% have possible spelling errors. Furthermore, of the 1,841 e-commerce pages they crawled, only 122 and 163 had no spelling and grammar errors.

Spelling and grammar mistakes are red flags on any website. They convey sloppiness and a lack of attention to detail. Users may doubt whether the information is accurate, or question whether professionals, amateurs, or scammers are behind the site.

Moreover, misspellings, grammatical errors, and poor writing can impair your content’s meaning, clarity, and effectiveness. Users may misunderstand, struggle to grasp your intended message, or become frustrated by the lack of coherence. As a result, they may abandon your site in search of more reliable sources of information.

If Millennials are your target audience, you need to correct all typos on your website ASAP. About 85% of consumers born between 1981 and 1996 are less likely to purchase a product advertised with errors. That’s a lot of customers to lose!

2. Messy and Busy Layouts

You know there’s too much going on when your eyes can’t focus on one element on your site.

Cluttered layouts, too many images, excessive buttons, color overload, and big blocks of text – without a clear hierarchy or structure – can confuse and frustrate visitors.

Such chaotic design choices can compromise your website’s sense of professionalism and attention to detail. Users may doubt the credibility of your information, products, or services. Consequently, they may seek alternatives from competitors with a more credible and organized online presence.

Home24, a home and living e-commerce platform, experienced a 606% improvement in clicks and an 11% increase in final order conversion simply by decluttering its web design. Dell, an American tech company, reduced bounce rates by 27% and increased submissions by 39% after simplifying the design of their pop-up contact window.

For more information, check out 13 Horrific Web Redesign Mistakes That Kill SEO.

3. Slow Loading

As an example, let’s say you urgently need tampons for your pre-teen, or a replacement charger for your phone. You come across a site that offers same-day delivery, but the webpage is taking forever to load. Wouldn’t you click out and buy elsewhere?

About 70% of online shoppers admitted that web page speed influences their purchasing decisions. Slow-loading websites often frustrate visitors, prompting them to abandon the site in favor of a competitor. Sluggish websites also result in $2.6 billion annual losses for owners.

Slow-loading pages give the impression of a poorly maintained or untrustworthy site. Users may perceive the delays as a sign of technical incompetence or neglect by the website owner, raising uncertainties about the platform’s security and reliability.

Learn more about Why Slow Page Speed Is Killing Your Business.

4. Mobile Unfriendliness

In 2015, Google announced that mobile responsiveness would become a search engine ranking factor. Nearly a decade has passed since. If your website is still mobile unresponsive, it screams outdated design, casting doubt on your website’s reliability. Even 73.1% of web designers believe that mobile-unfriendly design is one of the biggest reasons visitors abandon a site. After all, failure to load on various devices reflects poorly on professionalism and attention to user experience (UX).

Keep these facts in mind the next time you put mobile responsiveness on the back burner of your web design and optimization priorities:

• A whopping 92.3% of users access the internet on a mobile device.
• Smartphones are responsible for over 60% of website traffic.
• There are roughly 4.32 billion active mobile web surfers in the world.

Further reading: Responsive Websites vs. Mobile Websites and Why Mobile-Friendly Websites Spell SEO Success.

5. No Privacy Policy or Terms of Service

The absence of a Privacy Policy or Terms of Service can raise significant concerns about your website’s credibility and trustworthiness. These foundational documents are transparent communication channels between you, the website owner, and your visitors. They outline how your website collects, stores, and uses data. 

Without a Privacy Policy, visitors are in the dark about how their personal information is handled, potentially exposing them to privacy risks. Similarly, the absence of Terms of Service can lead to ambiguity regarding the rights and responsibilities of the website owner and its users, leaving room for disputes or misunderstandings.

Privacy is a growing concern in the digital space, with 92% of Americans expressing concerns about their privacy on the internet. The lack of these documents can undermine the legitimacy of your website. Users may perceive your website as careless or suspicious, deterring them from engaging further and compromising your site’s reputation.

Cultivate Trust with PrimeView

Trust is the bedrock of long-lasting customer relationships, and a well-designed website is your initial step toward building trust and nurturing prospective leads.

Working with an award-winning web design company like PrimeView can help you transform your pages by addressing any areas where your current strategies may be lacking. Whether it’s creating content with zero spelling, grammar, and composition errors, keeping your design clean and pleasing to the eyes, optimizing your website’s performance on desktop and mobile, or implementing policies for your website, PrimeView offers comprehensive digital solutions tailored to your specific needs. Call us at +1-480-970-4688 or write to us for a free quote.