A guest blog from our friends at Heartland

Fraudulent sites are leaving many customers weary of shopping online. Follow this guide for five simple ways to help your checkout page convert more shoppers into buyers.

1. Trust Badges

Trust badges are icons or logos that help increase the credibility of your brand—a critical piece to them being comfortable giving you their credit card. A few examples are:

  • Better Business Bureau logo
  • Customer review service logo
  • Payment gateway seal
  • SSL validation seal

2. Check Out as Guest

Many of your customers look at creating an account as being too personal. According to an article titled “The $300 Million Button” published in 2009, adding a “Check Out as Guest” option increased purchases for one large retailer by as much as 45 percent, adding $300 million in new revenue for the first year. Make sure your business caters to all types of buyers including those wary of merchant commitment.

3. Mobile-Friendly Websites Convert More Customers

Having a mobile-friendly website will help you outrank your competition. Google now shows if a site is mobile-friendly in the search results (and also ranks mobile-friendly websites higher than their counterparts). You can check if your website is mobilized here. An added benefit is that it will increase your conversion rates from tablet and phone customers.

A responsive website means that the content is minimized and the checkout experience is optimized automatically for mobile browsers. Limit content to increase the speed at which they can find, fill out and complete your checkout form. Flag your credit card field, expiration number fields and CVV fields as “tel” type so that the number pad shows up when the field is selected instead of the keyboard.

Also, make sure any links—such as an explanation on shipping options—open in a new tab so customers aren’t taken to a new page and have to click the “back” button (which could result in losing all the information they have already entered, forcing them to enter it again).

4. Make Contacting Your Customer Service Easy

Your customer service team is critical to the success of your website—whether it is live chat, email or phone. Customers will have questions and it is important for someone to be there to answer them. Make it easy for your customers to contact you when they have questions, as it can be the difference between a sale and an abandoned cart. Place your phone number in an easy-to-find location and make all phone numbers click-to-dial for mobile users.

5. Show Reviews and Testimonials

Reading reviews from other customers who have purchased the same product is a powerful influencer. This builds trust with the merchant and can help resolve questions the customer might have without making them leave your website. If you are selling services, include testimonials. If you are selling products, display the customer reviews.

This post was adapted from an article originally published on the Heartland Payment Systems blog. Click here to read the full version.