Eliminating anything on your website that causes uncertainty could get you thousands more sales and conversions. Your website needs to answer all the questions visitors might have, even before they can think of them!

Being the spontaneous, creative person that I am, I have just two days left before mother’s day to try and find a gift. There’s no need to fear though, thanks to my good old friend the Internet!

As a spontaneous user, I search for a ‘last minute mother’s day gift’ and click one of the top results. At this point I’m faced with a previously unseen website and I’m filled with FUDs!!!

Look for the elements of your website that cause uncertainty

You may be unfamiliar with the term FUD, and though it sounds a bit like a rival to Homer Simpson’s favourite beer, it’s actually an acronym for Fears, Uncertainties and Doubts. This is anything on a website that instils a lack of confidence in the user, makes them scared and ultimately makes them look elsewhere.

Having left things to the last minute here were some of the FUDs running through my mind straight from the word go:

• Do they sell gifts specifically for mother’s day?
• Two days to go, can they deliver on time?
• My mum is pretty special and particular; will they have the exact kind of thing I’m after?
• What’s the postage cost?
• Where does it mention site security, last thing I want is my card being cloned?
• Is that the total price including VAT and postage?
• Is that price any good?
• Will I get a confirmation telling me its’ been delivered on time, I’m in deep water if it isn’t?

The page I landed on didn’t have any text, images or signposts related to mother’s day. In fact the only call to action was way below the page fold of my high res monitor and it didn’t particularly stand out.

What I expected was to land on a page dedicated to mother’s gifts with a clear heading reinforcing this topic. Immediately I was uncertain they could fulfil my needs and was tempted to click off and find another website that would.

It’s things like this that you need to consider when building a website. People won’t buy from someone they don’t trust, or convert where there is no confidence. A user will normally have a list of questions to eliminate their FUDs, such as ‘Is this website secure?’ or ‘did other people find this product any good?’ So try to think of all the possible questions a user has along their journey to the conversion, and answer them.

Food for thought

To try and find FUDs on your site, think about the reasons you might not use it. Even better get a hypercritical friend or colleague to do the same, really give the site a grilling and see what questions and doubts come up.

Another great option is speak to the person who answers the phone – if they get the same question 800 times a day asking ‘does that price include VAT’ there will probably be another 10,000 people out there who had the same question but didn’t bother phoning to ask.

Once you consider the problems you can address them, and create a fulfilling experience for your users.