What Is a Trust Seal, and Does Your Landing Page Need One? [FAQs]

So you're reading up on creating your first landing page, and everything seems like a no-brainer. Great headline? Check. Form that's the proper length? Check. Customized "submit" button? Check, check, check. 

Then you see "trust seals." You stop. You're not sure what that means or if you need to include them on your landing page.

The other suggestions seem simple -- this one's out of left field. So what do you do? Here's what you need to know about trust seals (sometimes referred to as trust "symbols") before slapping one on your landing page.

What's a Trust Seal?

Turns out you've seen lots and lots of trust seals before, but you never realized you could use them in your marketing. Remember the last time gave over your credit card information on a website? Somewhere near the form fields where you put in your credit card information will usually feature one of these images:

These are trust seals. They are there to help reassure you that your sensitive information is secure with the company and/or website you're giving it to. In theory, once you see these on any landing page, you should feel much more secure giving over your information and converting on the form.

But that's not always what happens. Sometimes it might be successful ... and other times, it might not. So you've got to figure out whether you should use one on your site or not. 

When Should I Use One?

The best answer to this question is you don't know if it'll work until you try it. You've got to run A/B tests on your own landing pages to figure it out because your business is different from every other one that's run this before. (Don't know how to run an A/B test? We've got some simple instructions here.) 

If you wanted to get an idea of what you could expect out of the test before you run it, think about what kind of information you're asking people to give up in the form. Is it sensitive information like credit card numbers, home phone numbers, or social security numbers? I'd venture a guess that a trust seal could work wonders. Are you just asking for an email, and nothing else? Adding a trust symbol could be overkill -- people might wonder what you would've done if there weren't a trust seal. 

Moral of the story? Trust seals can be great on your landing pages -- or they can flop. It's up to you to figure it out from here. ;) 

Image credits: Arrested Development Wiki, Baymard Institute