Whether customers are ordering shrimp fried rice from their favorite online delivery website or shopping for a collectible waffle iron on eBay, the last thing they want to have to worry about is the security of their information. In her session at eTail East, Lee-Lin Thye, the Senior Product Marketing Manager at Symantec, addressed how to secure and maintain a potential customers trust in an e-commerce website by walking eTail attendees through each step of the online buying process.

Despite eTailers’ attempts to bolster their SEO, it will mean nothing if a consumer feels that the websites coming up under their searches do not look trustworthy. One way to ensure that customers see an e-commerce website as safe is to protect it with SSL software, which establishes a set of cryptographic protocols to communicate security to customers and give them the confidence to click on a link. That way, if consumers are using a safe search software that highlights which websites are safe, the website protected by SSL will stand out as one they can trust. Once your customers have actually clicked on to the safe website, it is important to keep reminding them that they can trust it by using certain “trust signifiers,” such as a section on the landing page that showcases the logos of the website security software in use by that particular website, or a page somewhere on the website that openly discusses privacy policies.

The last area of an eTailer’s website that should be seen as completely secure by the customer is the purchasing page. ETailers can secure their purchasing pages by adding a customer login, and once again displaying trust signifiers.

At this point, a customer will have navigated his/her way from the search engine to the purchase page of a certain retailer without ever doubting that their personal information was at risk. If they don’t have to worry about their private information, they won’t hesitate to buy the products off your website, which is your ultimate goal, afterall.