How to Make Your Website More Trustworthy and Why It Matters for Conversions (+Examples)
What makes consumers choose one product over another? In many cases, the secret ingredient to higher conversion rates is brand trust.
According to research data, brand credibility is not only a key factor influencing consumers’ buying decisions in 2025. It appears it’s just as important as product price and quality, demonstrating the impact of your brand’s reputation in facilitating business growth.
Knowing that most people form brand impressions based on web design, the logical conclusion is that you need to find effective tactics for making your website more trustworthy.
This article will guide you through the process of boosting brand trust via web design, along with examples of brands doing it right. By the end of it, you’ll have a clear idea of how to make your website more successful at communicating business credibility.
Clean, Aesthetically Appealing, Consistent Design
One of the simplest, yet most effective methods to elevate website trust is to be mindful of how design impacts credibility.
According to scientific research, people regularly evaluate brands based on their websites. Moreover, the majority of their impressions are formed based on visual design.
To position your organization as a credible and competent entity, one of the best things you can do is create a website that’s aesthetically appealing, simple, and consistent with your brand’s visual identity.
The Lars Nysøm homepage is a great example of what this looks like, with its minimalist (yet extremely informative) appearance, stunning visuals, and consistent branding.
Why This Works
Although it may seem like an irrelevant aspect of your online presence (or even just a tool you have to have in your arsenal in a digital world), the way your website looks directly reflects your brand’s core characteristics.
A cohesive, professional-looking online presentation will automatically paint a picture of a competent and dependable business entity. Yet, if your site looks off (in any way), your audience is bound to have doubts about your expertise.
Additionally, consistency is crucial in website design because it directly relates to your branding strategy.
Ultimately, you want to create a cohesive and recognizable brand image that your audience can easily remember. That way, they won’t just form a higher level of familiarity with your business (automatically elevating their chances of converting into customers). They might also seek out your brand’s solutions once they recognize a pain point they know you can solve. This will effectively help you optimize your marketing funnel without upping your spend on reaching new audiences.
Stellar Technical Performance and Security
Another key tactic for making your website more trustworthy (and effective at driving conversions) is to pay attention to its technical performance and security.
This includes aspects such as:
- HTTPS and SSL certificates.
- Security badges;
- Payment options;
- Loading speed;
- Privacy policies;
- Site bugs; and
- Basic UX design.
It’s also not a bad idea to employ microcopy in a way that will build trust and remove conversion obstacles, which is what Kittl does by pointing out that its software is “Free to use. No credit card required.”
Why This Works
If you look at some of the most prominent conversion killers out there, they have to do with a lack of perceived website safety.
The Baymard Institute found that 19% of cart abandonments happen because shoppers don’t trust websites with their credit card info, 15% give up on purchases due to site errors, and 10% give up on converting because of insufficient payment methods.
Moreover, new studies show that customer trust directly depends on data privacy, with 95% of people refusing to buy if their information is not properly protected.
Data-Based Social Proof
Consumers who don’t feel competent enough to make the right choice will inevitably stall in the buyer’s journey. This means that they’ll either give up on buying for the moment. Alternatively, they’ll seek out additional information to ensure they have all the relevant facts to help them decide on how best to solve their pain points.
However, if your business (and your website) appear trustworthy, your web visitors are automatically less likely to choose the first of the two options.
With this in mind, incorporating social proof — preferably that which is data-based — into your online presence is one of the most effective ways to make your website more trustworthy and to prove the effectiveness (and quality) of your offer.
For example, Rosie has an amazing way of using numbers to boost website trust, sharing impressive stats about the number of calls the brand’s solution has handled, the minutes it has saved for customers, and the appointments it has made so far.
Why This Works
There are several reasons why data-based social proof is so convincing.
First and foremost, numbers and facts carry a rational weight. They’re not an emotional response to a situation. Instead, they’re “cold hard facts” that speak for themselves.
Additionally, numbers remove any hesitation that stems from consumer inexperience. A high number of ratings and reviews shows that there’s plenty of real-life evidence to show that a product or service works.
Moreover, numbers can be a great way to demonstrate success, which drives a sense of safety among web users. People are generally more comfortable buying from well-established brands than from startups and innovators.
Convenient Contact Options
A website is a crucial part of a brand’s online presence.
But here’s the thing. Having a website does not make a business automatically trustworthy. Instead, for consumers to truly feel safe interacting with and buying from your brand, you need to prove to them that you’re a real entity.
One of the best ways to use this knowledge to make your website more trustworthy is to allow your prospects to interact with your company in several ways.
Bay Alarm Medical, for instance, invites web visitors to call toll-free with a clickable phone number. Plus, it allows potential customers to leave a message, get in touch via Facebook, or follow the brand on Instagram.
Why This Works
One of the primary ways this tactic helps elevate website credibility is that it connects your online presence with a well-established offline business.
An offline contact option demonstrates the legitimacy of your company, which is crucial in an era where a significant portion of consumers worry about online fraud and scams.
Moreover, inviting your audience to get in touch can be a marvelous method to communicate user-centricity. After all, a call, or even a chat or social media interaction, is far more personal than a landing page describing your offer.
Additionally, it demonstrates that you’re genuinely invested in providing prospects with a positive customer experience, a tremendously important thing, considering that 73% of consumers consider CX to be a key factor influencing their purchase decisions.
User-Centric Resources
In some cases, the best way to make your website more credible is to simply populate it with high-quality, unique content that provides genuine value to your potential (or existing) customers.
For example, something similar to the Cost Segregation Calculator on the RE Cost Seg website can be a great way to draw your audience into your sales funnel. Moreover, it’s an excellent strategy for providing them with some benefit upfront (for free), which builds trust and exhibits expertise.
Why This Works
If you look at the elements that build trust, you’ll find that earning a trustworthy reputation depends on three things.
First is ability, that is, your brand’s competence. Second is its integrity and adherence to a preset collection of values (ESG compliance, etc). Finally, there’s benevolence — good intentions toward your audience.
Enriching your website with user-centric resources covers two out of three of these factors.
On the one hand, great content allows you to truly showcase your brand’s (and team’s) competence and experience. On the other hand, allowing prospects to enjoy these resources for free establishes your company as a benevolent entity that places customer value over profits.
It’s also worth noting that great content helps SEO, seeing that Google has a strong preference for websites that possess the qualities of EEAT (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness). Publishing such resources on your site could be a great way to earn better rankings on SERPs.
In-Depth Product Explainers
The ultimate goal of making your website a credible source is that this type of reputation directly drives conversions.
But here’s the deal. You don’t just earn customer trust by proving that your products work or demonstrating your dedication to customer satisfaction.
It’s equally important to help your target audience comprehend the value of your offer, so that they are certain that what you sell is the right solution to resolve their pain points.
With this in mind, it’s always a good idea to optimize your website in a way that will drive product understanding (which automatically elevates purchase intent).
In-depth product explainers — such as the Our Process section on the Somewhere homepage — can be exceptionally effective at driving product understanding and elevating website trustworthiness because they educate potential customers without pushing them toward a conversion.
Why This Works
The data on why this technique works for boosting website trust is quite straightforward.
In simple terms, educational content falls under the category of user-centric resources, which makes it key for boosting brand credibility.
But, more importantly, educational content elevates conversion chances by as much as 131%.
So, if you want an easy way to make your website more credible and purchase-inspiring, do your best to ensure your visitors get what you offer — regardless of whether you do this with copy, visuals, or even a short explainer video.
Team Bios
Finally, if you want to make your site more credible and effective at engaging your audience, it’s not a bad idea to showcase some information about the people behind your brand.
Videos that give your employees a voice are usually an incredible way to accomplish this. Nevertheless, you can achieve equally positive outcomes by sticking to simpler formats. For example, the Start in Wyoming homepage shares a few key facts about the founder, his professional experience, his primary focus, and the main benefit he offers.
Why This Works
Inviting your audience to associate your brand (and website) with a real-life person is exceptionally effective at building authenticity. It can also be a great way to build a relationship with potential customers, which is hugely beneficial to boosting conversion rates.
Additionally, incorporating team bios into your website can be a solid way to boost authority — particularly in today’s world, where the majority of consumers trust experts and scientists just as much as their peers.
Wrapping Up
There you have it, some of the best ways to make your website more trustworthy.
As you can see, the majority of these tips have to do with establishing your brand’s reputation, providing your audience with value, and gently guiding prospects toward a conversion.
So, which of these tactics will you implement on your site?
Don’t feel like you have to choose just one. Instead, experiment with these tactics and see where they take you. You might find that simplifying your site’s design, improving its performance, or paying more attention to how you describe your offer is going to be the thing that transforms your site into a leading resource in your industry (and the first place your prospects check when they need to solve a pain point).