Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility

Stanford has compiled a list of 10 guidelines for building the credibility of a website – based on 3 years of research involving 4500 people.

These 10 guidelines are:

1. Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site.
2. Show that there’s a real organization behind your site.
3. Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide.
4. Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site.
5. Make it easy to contact you.
6. Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose).
7. Make your site easy to use — and useful.
8. Update your site’s content often (at least show it’s been reviewed recently).
9. Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers).
10. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem.

These are very relevant points which add to the overall “Site Credibility” or “Trust Factor” and have an impact on the rate of conversion that a site can enjoy.