Trustmarks are images or logos that endorse your business by reference to a third-party company or business.
There are two types of Trustmark:
Endorsement Trustmarks
These show other companies or organisations trust your product or service. Sometimes funding bodies, for example, ask you to display their logo when they reward a grant. This may be an advantage because the fact you received a grant shows a third-party recognises your work.
Other possibilities might be
- organisations with which you work in partnership,
- bodies that accredit your work, or
- past customers.
Of course, you should always get their permission before you display their trustmark.
They are an at-a-glance equivalent of testimonials. Some websites display them together, perhaps as a band above the footer. If you have a testimonial, you could display the trustmark with it.
Safety Trustmarks
The second type of trustmark are logos that reassure the visitor to your site that it is safe. So, if you are taking payments through the site, for example, you might display the PayPal logo to reassure visitors making payments. This does not mean PayPal endorses your site’s content from but it reassures because a third-party records the payment.
This type of Trustmark is usually displayed close to where it is relevant. So you will display the PayPal logo where you request the payment. If your site sells a lot of things you might show it in your header, so the visitor can see it applies to the whole site.
Conclusion
If you can display trustmarks, it may be an advantage but many websites manage without them and it is probably not worth chasing such endorsements. If you have them, use them and if not don’t worry about them!
This is part of a post sequence about the second element of the circuit questionnaire, products services and causes.
