Giving visitors a sense of security increases their confidence in the site. It also reduces any fears or anxieties they may feel about the authenticity of the site in general.
A client that sells high-end furniture online suffered from low conversion. They are one of the largest furniture stores online, but they are still relatively unknown, so they do not have the brand recognition that eases establishment of trust. However, the company carries a wide range of brand-name furniture that customers would be familiar with.
Their conversion rate was hovering at around .15%. Our team looked at the site and prioritized it based on the most effective areas of optimization (those requiring the smallest amount of effort). The checkout was pinpointed as a prime area for optimization.
It was apparent that people felt unprotected on the site because no form of security was in place. People can protect themselves in the absence of any third-party monitoring of web information. There are some standard security protocols for making web purchases safer; principal among them are Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates, which are designed to ensure the security of web servers. When you visit an SSL server, it places a small lock icon in the bottom-right corner of the browser window, and the URL in the address bar begins with https:. The client made certain that their visitors would realize the security of the site.
Data provided by Net Market Share (http://www.netmarketshare.com/) shows that as of May 2009, Internet Explorer controlled close to 60% of the browser market share, while Firefox controlled 25%. Meanwhile, Google Chrome has been gaining in popularity and holds 7% of the market share. So, at a minimum, your site or landing page needs to support both IE and Firefox.
You can examine analytics data to get a breakdown of the browsers visitors use to get to your website. Beyond browser compatibility, you need to check how your design looks on different operating systems. Several commercial services are available that allow you to view your web design on any browser or operating system.
Tom Dahm from NetMechanic gives an excellent explanation for issues that cause browser compatibility problems:
Your Web browser is a translation device. It takes a document written in the HTML language and translates it into a formatted Web page. The result of this translation is a little like giving two human translators a sentence written in French and asking them to translate it into English. Both will get the meaning across, but may not use the same words to do so.
Additionally, when you are dealing with browsers, you also need to view your site in the most popular resolutions. Also, what falls below and above the fold on your website? These are issues that you must address because, if you ignore them, they can lead to an increase in FUDs.