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Friday, June 28, 2002
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Typos and Misleading Ads Lower Website Crediblity
Companies that fail to check their spelling on their corporate
websites risk damaging their online credibility just as badly
as if they faced financial or legal troubles. And while people
uniformly trust websites they consider useful, they also have
strong doubts about those sites that carelessly mix editorial
content with advertising.
These are just some of the findings from a new study of over
1,600 American and European Internet users conducted by
Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab and sponsored
by Makovsky & Company, a New York business communications
firm, which provided financial and editorial support.
"The Stanford - Makovsky study emphasizes the importance for
organizations of embracing their websites as an integral
element of their communications with different constituencies,
one that can either enhance or detract from its reputation
overall," said Ken Makovsky, President of Makovsky & Company.
The study highlighted various factors that determined why
certain websites enjoy greater levels of credibility than others:
- Study participants listed respect for the organization that
created the website, quick responses to customer service
questions, an online mention of the organization's address,
the timeliness of site content, and a contact phone number as
important characteristics of a credible site in addition to
its overall usefulness.
- The same group reacted unfavorably to sites that use pop-up
advertisements or fail to update copy. Broken links, poor site
navigation, and links to sites perceived to be non-credible were also
among the highest negative influences.
- Americans appear to place greater trust in sites that
provide valid content and respect privacy than their
Europeans counterparts. Americans gave much higher credibility
rankings to websites that offered privacy statements, sent emails
to confirm transactions, indicated the source of site content
or provided credentials for its authors.
- Women attached greater credibility to websites with
privacy policies, email confirmations of transactions and
contact phone numbers than men.
"If websites were cars, it would be the trusty Toyota not
the flashy Ferrari that would win the Web credibility race,"
says Stanford consulting faculty member BJ Fogg, who runs the
Persuasive Technology Lab. "This study confirms previous
research we've done, but in many ways it expands our
understanding about what leads people to believe - or not
believe - what they find online."
The websites of non-profit organizations enjoyed greater
credibility than commercial operations, but in general,
how an organization made a profit or accomplished its
mission seemed less important than how they presented and
managed the information contained within their Internet
properties. That's why Makovsky Executive Vice President
Robbin Goodman suggests that companies retain a high
degree of control over their online reputations.
"Certainly it helps to start with a company that enjoys a
strong standing in the real world, yet this study indicates
you can improve an organization's online reputation with a
series of simple actions," says Goodman, who supervises the
agency's technology and interactive practices. "Keep content
current and free of advertising influences. Design your site
so your audiences can easily find the information and
features they want. Make sure everything is spelled
correctly and that the site links work."
The Stanford-Makovsky team developed 55 observations to
describe a Web site's design, content, performance and
ownership, and asked study participants to indicate how
each statement affected believability from a score of 3 (high) to
-3 (low). The study then ranked the average scores for each
statement to highlight the various factors that determined
why certain Web sites enjoy greater levels of credibility
than others.
While a company's existing reputation played a factor,
the highest scores emphasized a Web site's usefulness and features:
- The site has proven useful to you before (2.02)
- The site is by an organization that is well-respected (1.97)
- The site provides a quick response to your customer service
questions (1.83)
- The site lists the organization's physical address (1.67)
- The site has been updated since your last visit (1.65)
- The site gives a contact phone number (1.56)
- The site looks professionally designed (1.54)
The lowest ranking scores emphasized the factors that detract
from credibility:
- The site makes it hard to distinguish ads from content (-1.9)
- The site is rarely updated with new content (-1.65)
- The site automatically pops up new windows with ads (-1.64)
- The site has a link that doesn't work (-1.42)
- The site is difficult to navigate (-1.38)
- The site links to a site you think is no credible (-1.38)
The study encompassed 1,649 online users (with a 55/45 male
to female ratio), primarily from the United States and
Finland. The average participant was a college-educated
person in his early 30s with an annual income of $50,000.
Almost two-thirds have been on the Web for five years or
more and averaged 10 hours of Internet usage each week.
The study was conducted through an online survey between
December 2001 and February 2002. Fogg's team conducted a
similar global study on website credibility in 1999.
A complete report on the Stanford-Makovsky Web
Credibility Study 2002 can be found at http://www.makovsky.com or
http://www.webcredibility.org.
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