Website/Business Verification Seals and Badges

I have recently put up a site for my small internet marketing consultancy and would like to add some badges that indicate its a trustworthy site.

I know there is the Verisign seal of trust, and I know I've seen others like it. Anyone know of other good ones? (I'm also going to be putting up an SEOMoz company badge and Boulder, CO Chamber of Commerce badge)

Thanks, Jim

The "Microsoft Certified Partner" badges and similar badges in other technology areas are often used for this. The theory is that because they have a large and extremely well known brand like Microsoft on them, they will work well. And that they hint at some sort of professional qualification & certification process.

Something else: I have been looking for unbiased evidence that these kinds of badges actually work (inspire more trust/improve conversion rate) for a couple of years now. I have not found any evidence yet. Of the materials that I've seen so far, the positive whitepapers claiming that these badges work are from organizations selling these badges...

So if somebody has evidence that these badges work, I'm listening. Until I've seen such evidence, I would suggest that OP should not go overboard with many badges, or perhaps A/B test different badge combinations first.

Having a seal is not optional if you are going to use credit card processing otherwise an optional simple business verification seal will do the trick. It is about trust, for example, if you are not going to process credit card and you will be using third party processes then it is worth having for example paypal seal to assure customers that you are a verified business.

As you said, you're a "small internet marketing consultancy" so that means a personal, niche, service...not an impersonal, generic, faceless, commodity site which would merit some third-party credentials because the site is the business - there is no concern to the visitor about payment security, viruses, privacy, and complaints of selling without sending.

But it's YOU that is the business so all the site is trying to generate is them making contact. Putting badges on such a site would confuse me.

I think it depends on your brand, your target segment, and your positioning. For example, for the website that we recently launched, Fastnote, our positioning on privacy is an important attribute of our brand. With that in mind, we've worked closely with TRUSTe on our privacy policy and have engaged them as the independent third party to which our users can turn if we don't resolve any concerns they may have about our privacy related actions. We are using their seal on our site and believe it will be helpful.

They have some good case studies on their site that might be useful for you.