[thelist] Do SSL and Visa/MC Seals Help?

[Brian White - WebHostingSolutions.com]

At 4:09 PM +0200 3/15/11, Fred Jones wrote:
>A certain marketing person has suggested to my client that he should
>put seals/logos of Visa and Mastercard and his SSL provider on his
>hosting site. This person says it adds "third party credibility."
>
>I Googled for this and all I can find is opinions. Most seem to
>suggest, "It may help and why not do it?" and only a few note that it
>may detract from a site design. I personally never look nor care for
>such logos, but I'm a web guy so I just look for https. In fact, in my
>opinion, an SSL seal detracts from a site and makes it look less
>professional. But perhaps that's just me.
>
>You certainly don't see Visa/MC/SSL seals on HostGator or MonsterHost
>nor on Amazon, however. I understand that those sites may be
>inherently trusted because people know their names, but anyhow you
>still see that the big boys don't use these seals/logos.
>
>I look forward to any thoughts or actual studies regarding this.
>
>Thanks.

FWIW, I don't believe you need the credit card company logos 
(different from "seals" though) at all, but I do believe (based on my 
own experience with clients and what I've read over the years) that 
especially for sites that are new or may not have name recognition, 
that having the seal/link for the SSL cert provider does help 
establish trust and credibility with a certain unknown percentage of 
potential customers.

Regards,
-- 

Brian White
President - WebHostingSolutions.com
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