Personal Blog: January 2018

Wednesday, 24 January 2018

About us pages

About us pages are easily overlooked, but they do perform a valuable role on websites: explaining your product or proposition in a way that visitors can easily understand.

Here, I'll look what about us pages need to do, as well as some useful examples...

How important are 'about us' pages?

That's a tricky question, and the answer may vary according to the type of website and product or service on offer.

For example, I doubt that Tesco's about us page is especially vital, but if you're a startup, then your page needs to explain what you do to new visitors.

According to James Gurd of DigitalJuggler:

Typically, only a small % of visitors will ever look at this page (for example for one B2C retail Client only 0.5% of all sessions reach that page, of which 80% are new users), therefore they’re not critical from a commerce point of view.

They are important pages for validating your business credentials to people who don’t know you and have no reason yet to trust you.

'About us' pages are more frequently used on B2B sites, where company history and positioning is a key factor in the buying cycle, especially when selecting a long-term trading partner.

Here. Moz makes its 'About' page a reasonably prominent link in the header.

James:

However, there are some situations in which this page has more value, for example a pureplay retailer with no offline brand presence – visitors are more likely to want to know about them as they don’t have another reference point.

My view is that not having an ‘About’ page is an oversight – it’s a relatively simple task to get this written and maintained and it could make a difference in persuading new users to trust you and make a purchase.

What should a good 'about us' page set out to achieve?

There are three key questions the page needs to answer:

Who are you?
Why are you doing this?
What makes you different?

The content should tell the story of the business in your unique way (so definitely not written by a third party who doesn’t understand what you do) and use persuasion techniques to give people the confidence to trust what you say and do.

James:

It’s about communicating your core values and culture and, to a certain extent, inspiring people with your vision and ambition.

For companies with heritage, it should also provide a timeline to showcase how the company has grown/evolved since launch, using photos from the different periods to provide a visual trail.

To use Moz as an example again, its 'about' page contains a timeline that establishes it as a brand with some history, as well as being easy to read.

What information is essential on 'about us' pages?

There are some pieces of information that people expect to see on such pages.

A concise vision statement

This should summarise what the company represents, what it does and why it does it.

This is one from MethodsUnsound.com (from our very own Christopher Ratcliff) , which is to the point, and honest about the fact that it's just starting up:

Many tech and agency sites can be frustrating in their failure to explain what they do in plain English, but Phrasee describes what it does succintly:

A summary of the company culture and core values.

Here, Moz explains its core values:

Testimonials from genuine customers/fans

This is from the Econsultancy about page, showing some of the clients we've worked with, complete with video testimonials.

A snapshot of key employees

This helps to show that the company is kosher, and photos make these pages easier to scan and understand. Here's ours:

Some companies have been more creative with theirs. I like Digital Marmalade's use of Top Trumps style cards for each team member:

Lateral shows its design chops with this page, where each member turns to look at the photo you mouse over.

Interactive content

Kitchencraft uses an interactive timeline to show the company's heritage:

Video is a proven way to communicate longer messages, as not all businesses can be summed up in a sentence or two.

references: https://econsultancy.com/blog/66478-what-should-a-good-about-us-page-contain

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Security

How do I make my website secure?

Step 1: Host with a dedicated IP address. In order to provide the best security, SSL certificates require your website to have its own dedicated IP address. ...
Step 2: Buy a Certificate. (FREE FOR WIX USERS!!!)
Step 3: Activate the certificate. ...
Step 4: Install the certificate. ...
Step 5: Update your site to use HTTPS.
Add Anti-Virus app if possible - AntiVirus software logo make your customers more confident and eager to make the payment via your website.
Use paypal payment method - this action shows that you are not responsible for the payment process - just leave it for the world-famous trustworthy paypal platform.

Best practices for detecting and preventing online fraud

Card data security and fraud prevention should be among the top considerations when selecting an online payment system for your small or medium-sized business. That means more than just picking a vendor and calling it a day. Data security is a participatory sport, and it means following a few best practices.

Advanced fraud detection and prevention efforts by payment processors can scan patterns of card use and other behaviors to determine the likelihood of fraud. Payment vendors have learned a tremendous amount fighting fraud on the front lines, and they are constantly channeling those lessons into tools and procedures that help protect your business against future fraud attempts. Many of these features also allow you to proactively refund customers for charges that are likely to be fraudulent, which can help reduce the burden and cost of managing the chargeback processes.

Hosted checkouts (also known as “pay pages”) still make sense for many types of online transactions, and several leading payment providers offer pay-page features. Hosted checkout pages remove all card data from associating with or entering your online payments systems. Hosted checkouts also dramatically reduce your PCI scope. Adherence to PCI-DSS standards remains vital, so make sure your company achieves and stays PCI compliant.

Another best practice to help your business prevent online fraud is to use an address verification system (AVS). This system checks the validity of a billing address against the cardholder’s data from the issuing bank. Yes, this adds a few seconds to the checkout procedure. But inserting a simple verification procedure can be the difference preventing and allowing a case of online fraud. Consumers actually want to see reasonable security precautions, because most of them know that they exist in order to protect them.

Outsourcing for security

If you decide to outsource online payment management to a specialist company, this company will be responsible for security by encrypting data in the following ways:

Guaranteed privacy of data transferred via the Internet using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) standard protocol
Integrity of data transferred guaranteed by embedding data
Authentication of the different parties (trader and bank) via a shared secret key
Safe storage of data through compliance with Visa and Mastercard standards (known as PCI DSS)
Authentication of all parties involved (known as 3D secure) to keep fraud at a minimum by authenticating the user of the credit or debit card

references:
www.howto-expert.com/how-to-get-https-setting-up-ssl-on-your-website/

https://www.vantiv.com/vantage-point/safer-payments/security-for-online-payment-systems

Cookies

What cookies are

Cookies are files created by websites you visit. They make your online experience easier by saving browsing information. With cookies, sites can keep you signed in, remember your site preferences, and give you locally relevant content.

There are two types of cookies:

First-party cookies are created by the site you visit. The site is shown in the address bar.
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references: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en