This may sound funny, but every time I sit down to write a blog post I have this overwhelming urge to start it out with “we’ve done it again!” Why? Because almost every time, it seems like we’re either launching an amazing new product, or upgrading our existing products to make them better. These new products and upgrades are always focused toward helping you to improve your online trust and credibility, which in turn helps you make more sales.

This week, we definitely don’t disappoint. We’re happy to announce the launch of our brand new PCI Scanning Security Video seals! As you know, for nearly a year now, we’ve been providing our clients with state-of-the-art streaming security video seals. So, it just made sense for us to create a new, advanced PCI Scanning video seal to go along with the advanced security and peace of mind that PCI Scanning brings.

Take a look at the video by pressing the play button:

If you currently have one of our daily or quarterly PCI Scanning multi-seal packages, or if you have PCI Scanning in conjunction with the security video option in your control panel, then you automatically get the new PCI Security video seal for free! (That’s just the way we roll.)

You can easily find out if you have the new PCI Scanning video seal option. Simply log into your member control panel at secure.trust-guard.com, and click on ‘Get Code’. If you have PCI Scanning, and the video seal shows up on the page, you have it. It you don’t see a video seal, then it’s easy to upgrade. Simply call (877) 848-2731 ext. 2 or email us at support@trust-guard.com and one of our friendly staff can assist you.

How do I update the video on my site?

If you currently have PCI Scanning and have the original security video on your site, then you don’t have to do anything. It has automatically been updated for you.

If you have the video seal option in your control panel, but haven’t added the video seal to your website, then the copy and paste instructions are found in your control panel.

We recommend placing the video seal one-time on the final checkout page of your website for maximum results.

What else do we have up our sleeves?

We’ve working behind the scenes on something BIG! Very big! It’s called Shopper Verified and it’s just about ready to launch. This new service is going to take your trust, credibility, and conversion to incredible new heights, so stay tuned!

Till next time,

Scott Brandley, CEO
Trust Guard

It’s been a labor of love, but the new mini Security Video Seal is now live! And on my birthday no less.

Our newest lineup to Trust Guard seals, the mini seal, was first launched on June 2nd. Now, just two short months later, we’re proud to introduce the mini video seal.

The mini video seal is considerably smaller than the regular video seal, but is still crisp and detailed, and just as captivating as the original size.

And the best part? The mini Security Video Seal is FREE to all our members with an existing Multi-Seal Package!

For members who don’t have the Multi-Seal package, don’t fret.    You  can save 50% on the Video seal by logging into your Trust Guard member control panel and picking the SALE link on the right.

That’s my birthday present to all of you. Enjoy!

It’s already in your control panel ready to add to your site. Just go to the ‘Get Code’ tab and click on the mini seal check box to grab the code. (Note: If you are a TG Member that signed up before Feb ‘08, and you haven’t switched over to our new system, just email support (at) trust-guard.com and we will be happy to move you over.)

Important Video Seal Strategy

When it comes to placing your video seal, there is a very specific strategy to help you boost your conversion and simultaneously lower your shopping cart abandonment.

The very best place to add a TG video seal is on the actual checkout page where the customer enters their credit card information. Why? Because this is the place where people make their final decision as to whether they’re going to actually buy or not.

Video seals are perfect for a ‘one-punch’ confidence boost, which is why they’re so ideal for the final checkout page. Conversely, this also means that they lose their magic after the customer watches it and goes to another page, which is why we don’t recommend adding video seals on multiple pages in your site. The strategy is to save it for the page that counts the most.

A New PCI Security Video Seal Coming Soon???

That’s right. If you’re one of our hundreds of clients that are enjoying the amazing benefits of PCI Security Scanning, we are just about to release another video seal, specifically made for PCI Scanning. It works exactly like the current security video seal, but Jodi explains to your customers the additional security measures that you’ve taken on their behalf.

You can expect these special PCI video seals sometime in the next couple weeks. They’ve already been professionally shot in HD and enhanced by our good friends over at iSpeakVideo, and are being integrated into our system as we speak. And, of course, all our PCI clients get them for free!

(If you want to learn more about iSpeakVideo, and how adding streaming video can enhance your website, make sure to watch the exclusive interview I did with Erik Kretschmar over at iSpeakVideo. And, if you decide that you want more info, click here for a free site consultation and an exclusive deep discount from Erik to all of our clients.)

Keep the Feedback Coming

Here at Trust Guard, we think of all of you as part of our family, and we love to get feedback from you. Whether it’s just a ‘keep up the good work’ or a ‘I think you can make this better’, we appreciate the time you take to let us know how we’re doing.

Remember, we’re here to help you be successful, so let us know how we’re doing by sending an email to support (at) trust-guard.com.

Till next time, I wish you all the best,

Scott Brandley, CEO
Trust Guard

Here’s an amazing example of the power of streaming video and the power of split testing.  This story actually starts back in 2006.

Back in late 2006, I met a young woman at an Internet Marketing convention in Orlando.  It turned out that she had worked for Martha Stewart, but had just branched out on her own and start a streaming video company.  I asked her if she thought it was possible to film someone on a green screen, and then cut out the background and add them to a website.  She thought it was possible, and so we started a project to create a transparent video spokesperson for Trust Guard.  Unfortunately after about 4 months of bad actor reviews and horrible green skinned, fuzzy actors, we decided to call it a day, and I was so discouraged that didn’t look at any video technology for over a year.

About this same time, unknown to me, about half a dozen companies had the same idea, and were just coming onto the scene with guns blazing – all in the transparent streaming video market.  In the middle of ‘08, I stumbled across one of these companies videos, and I couldn’t believe how far the technology had progressed in just one year!

I immediately started investigating all the companies that I could find, and it was obvious that one particular company was clearly leading the pack – iSpeakVideo.

Once we decided on iSpeakVideo, we set out writing scripts, selecting our actor, and the rest is history.  It’s now been about 10 months since we started using video on Trust Guard and now on our security seals, and we’ve had tremendous results.  In fact, the video on our homepage actually increased our conversion by 49% (we did a split test using Google Website Optimizer), and the video security seals are increasing sales and lowering shopping cart abandonment rates for many of our clients!

As you can tell, I’m really excited about streaming video – particularly borderless HD video.  Which is why I interviewed Erik Kretschmar, VP of Marketing over at iSpeakVideo.

If you’ve ever considered looking into adding a virtual spokesperson to your site, Erik has a wealth of valuable information and insight to offer, so sit back, relax, and enjoy this exclusive interview – courtesy of all of us here at Trust Guard.

(Note: If you’re one of our Privacy Policy only clients, and would like to get the exclusive discounts mentioned in this video, click here.  If you’re a Trust Guard client, you can find this and many other exclusive TG member offers in your member control panel.  Note: If you signed up before Feb. 2008 and you haven’t migrated to the new system, simply email support (at) trust-guard.com and we will be happy to help you move over so you can start enjoying all the features of the new system.)

Did you miss the last Insider edition w/ Michel Fortin?

In the last TG Insider, I did an exclusive interview, with the #1 sales copy writer online, Michel Fortin.

It was an amazing interview, packed full of great tips and strategies for getting the best sales content for your site.

To listen to the interview, click here.

In the Next Edition of the Trust Guard Insider…

On July 14th, in the next edition of the Trust Guard Insider, we will be launching our new mini-video seals!

They’re about 1/3rd the size of our standard video seals, and they look amazing.

So keep an eye out. You won’t want to miss it!

We’d Love to Hear From You…

Do you have any good ideas or suggestions on how we can do better? We’d love to hear from you. Just email us at support (at) trust-guard.com with any feedback that you may have.

Till next time, we wish you all the best.

Sincerely,

Scott Brandley, CEO
Dave Brandley, President
Garrett Pierson, Operations Manager
and all the Trust Guard staff!

If you haven’t realized by now, here at Trust Guard we do everything we can to help you improve your online sales.

So, it’s just natural that we interview the #1 sales copy expert in the world, Michel Fortin, in an effort to help you further boost your conversion.

When it comes to writing copy that sells, Michel is definitely someone you want as a mentor. He has literally written for the who’s who of Internet Marketing, including legends such as:

John Reese
Armin Morin
Yanik Silver
Jay Abraham
Cory Rudl
Frank Kern
Shawn Casey
Mark Joyner
and the list goes on and on…

When you interview someone at this level in their profession, you want to make sure you make every question count, and you want to get everything you can out of it. So, to help you do that, we’ve created a helpful video that displays every question, and also visually displays all of the gold nuggets that Michel discusses in the interview, so make sure to grab a pen and paper!

Here’s just a small sample of some of the wealth that is included in this amazing interview…

- The single biggest mistake that people do when they write copy
- The #1 Strategy for improving your online conversion
- How the acronym Q.U.E.S.T. will change the way you write copy from now on
- The REAL scoop on long copy vs. short copy – how and when to know what to write
- How Michel wrote the very first sales letter to ever make 1 Million Dollars in a single day
- Michel’s top recommended copywriting book list
- and much more!

In the Next Edition of the Trust Guard Insider…

On June 30th, I’ll be interviewing Erik Kretschmar, one of the VP’s over at iSpeakVideo – They are the company that developed the amazing HD transparent streaming videos for our site and our NEW Trust Guard Video Seals.

In our interview we talk about the benefits of streaming video, and how adding the video to the Trust Guard home page increased our conversion rate by an amazing 49%!

If you’ve ever wondered what video can do for your website, this is the interview to watch!

We’d Love to Hear From You…

Do you have any good ideas or suggestions on how we can do better? We’d love to hear from you. Just email us at support (at) trust-guard.com with any feedback that you may have.

Till next time, we wish you all the best.

Sincerely,

Scott Brandley, CEO
Dave Brandley, President
Garrett Pierson, Operations Manager
and all the Trust Guard staff!

P.S. If you didn’t get a chance to read last weeks Trust Guard Insider where Garrett and I interview Xan and Jenn Spencer, the winners of Russell Brunson’s 100 Million Dollar Challenge, or if you want to learn how to get a Free PCI Security Scan for your website, Click Here to Read the Article!

We’ll, in this edition of the Trust Guard Insider, we talk about both of these things in detail. (Unfortunately they’re unrelated, but they are still both great reads!)

Here we go…

Think Your Website is Safe from Hackers? Think Again…

So, for those of you that don’t know, we officially launched our PCI Scanning services back on January 7th, 2009. It’s been a great success so far, quickly becoming one of our flagship services. A couple weeks ago, out of curiosity, I asked Zach, one of our programmers what percentage of new clients failed their initial scan with at least one or more medium, high, or severe vulnerabilities. He ran some numbers and my jaw dropped.

“73% of all our new PCI clients failed their initial scans! That’s nearly 3 in every 4 websites!”

If this number is any indication of the Internet as a whole, that means that most websites have vulnerabilities that are open to hackers, viruses, and more – and most website owners don’t have any idea that they’re at risk. What’s worse is that these vulnerabilities can put their customers information at risk, including names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, and credit cards.

We’ll, these numbers were a wake up call to us that we needed to help our customers improve their security. So, we’ve decided to offer all of our clients a full 25,000+ point, PCI Security Scan (a $47 value) for free!

To run the scan, you simply log into your Trust Guard Member Control Panel, click on the PCI Scanning tab, and then click on the ‘Start Scan’ button. In about 10-15 minutes, the scan will end and you will be able to view both the Executive and Detailed Scan Reports to find out exactly where your website stands. The Detailed report will even give you instructions on how to fix any vulnerabilities that you might find that you can easily send to your server administrator (usually your hosting company).

If you are not a Trust Guard member yet and would like to find out more about how you can start providing trust and security to your customers then sign up today at http://www.trust-guard.com/compare-Trust-Seals-s/1.htm. (Note: If you signed up for Trust Guard before Feb. 2008 and you haven’t migrated to the new system, simply email support (at) trust-guard.com and we will be happy to help you move over so you can start enjoying all the features of the new system.)

From Total Internet Newbies to Winners of The $100 Million Dollar Challenge! Meet Xan and Jenn Spencer…

So your standing in your robe one morning making some toast, when there’s a knock on the door. You go and answer it and Russell Brunson – one of the biggest internet marketers online is standing there, with the keys to a brand new 2009 Corvette parked out front with a big red bow on it.

Think that’s far fetched? Meet Xan and Jenn Spencer.

A few months ago they were completely new to the Internet, but they worked hard, followed some great advice, and we’re not only able to build a booming internet business, but they also won Russell’s challenge and he indeed came to their house and presented them with a Corvette!

In a stroke of fate or luck or what have you, Garrett and I were able to interview Xan and Jenn to find out how they did it, and learn some of their insider strategies and information that they used to go from zero to booming in just a few short months.

To watch this insider interview, click on the video below…

In the Next Edition of the Trust Guard Insider…

Our next edition of the Trust Guard Insider coming out on June 16th will really take your business to the next level!

I am going to be personally interviewing Michel Fortin – one of the best online copywriters in the world. He’s written sales copy for practically every big name in marketing, both on and offline. His copy has generated over 1 Million dollars in a single day!

In my interview I am going to be asking him his #1 copywriting secret to instantly improving your website conversion – you won’t want to miss it!

So be sure to mark June 16th on your calendars for all the juicy details!

Sincerely,

Scott Brandley, CEO
Dave Brandley, President
Garrett Pierson, Operations Manager
and all the Trust Guard staff!

P.S. If you didn’t get a chance to read last weeks Trust Guard Insider about the ‘Two New Trust Guard Services Launched‘, then take a look at some great features we have added to your Trust Guard member area! Click Here to Read the Article!

We’re excited to officially announce the launch of 2 valuable new services for all of our Trust Guard members, to help you continue to take your website conversion and traffic to new heights!

Introducing the ‘Trust Guard Insider’!

First off, we’d like to welcome you to our ‘Trust Guard Insider’ newsletter/blog.  You see, for months we’ve been posting great behind-the-scenes split test results, case studies, interviews, surveys and more here on our blog, but we haven’t been actively sharing it with our members.  This got us thinking…

“We’ve got this amazing blog, and we post all this great information.  Why not send out a quick email whenever we make an important post, so our members can stay current on what we’re doing, to help them maximize their investment?”

Sounds like fun, right?  So that’s exactly what we’re going to do!  From now on, whenever we have something really important and valuable to share with you, we will send you a quick email, which will point directly to the latest version of the  Trust Guard Insider.

(Don’t worry, we will only send emails that are worth your while.  And, if you don’t absolutely love what we share with you, there’s a simple opt-out link at the bottom of every email we send you.)

Our goal is to make this the most valuable resource in your conversion arsenal, and based on what we’ve got lined up, we know it will be!

Introducing New Mini Seals!

Second, we would like to announce the launch of our brand new Mini Seals!  The Trust Guard Mini Seals are the newest member to the Trust Guard lineup, and have been over a year in the making.

Measuring in at only 100×40 pixels, these little gems fit almost anywhere on your site, yet still retain your custom website name, current date, and active color status.  (We’ve even created a new Mini Security Video Seal – think ‘Mini Me’ from Austin Powers – coming out shortly.)

The minis’ are sold as a stand-alone basic multi-seal package for $397/yr., but if you’re a Trust Guard member, you get them for FREE!

Simply log into your member control panel and they’re already waiting for you, ready to add to your site.

(Note: If you signed up for Trust Guard before Feb. 2008 and you haven’t migrated to the new system, simply email support (at) trust-guard.com and we will be happy to help you move over so you can start enjoying all the features of the new system.)

So what else are we working on?

So, what other fun projects are we working on here at Trust Guard?  We’ll, we’re currently in the middle of a huge multi-variable split test with Mike Filsaime, owner of PayDotCom, where we’re putting Trust Guard directly against some of the leading trust seals in the world for the ultimate showdown!

Meanwhile, I’m finishing up our brand new Privacy Policy Monitor that will make a great addition to our industry leading privacy services.

Dave is working on getting S.C.O.R.E. ready to release to the public (if you don’t know what S.C.O.R.E. is, think about how cool it would be to have a program that could submit your content to article directories, social sites, micro blogging sites, Wordpress blogs, and any other type of site you can think of, with just a few clicks)!

Garrett is personally training Alex Mandossian (one of the top internet marketers online) and his staff on his brand new ‘Building Social Equity‘ step-by-step video course on how to dominate the search engines and social media/Web 2.0 websites, which is rolling out this summer.

In the Next Edition of the Trust Guard Insider…

Our next edition of the Trust Guard Insider coming out on June 10th is a real eye opener!

Most people think that their website is safe from hackers, but you won’t beleive how many medium, high, and severe vulnerabilities we’ve found on new signups since launching our groundbreaking PCI Scanning services in January.

We’re going to reveal some jaw dropping statistics, along with a special FREE gift that will help every one of our members to protect their website and their customer’s information from hackers and vulnerabilities.

From all of us here at Trust Guard, we look forward to continue helping you with your online success!

Sincerely,

Scott Brandley, CEO
Dave Brandley, President
Garrett Pierson, Operations Manager
and all the Trust Guard staff!

P.S. Congratulations to Garrett on the launch of his brand new book that just came out, “What Success Takes”!

For those of you that don’t know, Garrett went out and personally interviewed 30 highly successful people from all different walks of life, and asked them to share their stories and experiences of how they became successful.  If you want to get inspired, it’s a great read.  I hope you check it out.  Go to http://www.whatsuccesstakes.com

I did an interview with Mark to find out more about his experience with Trust Guard, and most importantly, what type of impact the 12% increase in sales meant to his company. To watch this 7 min. interview between Mark and myself, click on the play button below.

Scott: Hi, this is Scott Brandley with Trust Guard. I’m here today, with Mark Griggs. He’s one of the owners of Gray and Holt, Inc. He is actually a Trust Guard member and he recently finished a split test and had some pretty good increase in his conversion. I asked Mark if he would do an interview today, and just kind of get some feedback from him on his experience with Trust Guard, how his split test went, and what that means to his company. Hi Mark.

Mark: Hello Scott. How are you doing, today?

Scott: I’m doing real good. Can you tell us a little bit about your company and what you do?

Mark: My name is Mark Griggs, and I’m one of the owners and managers of Gray and Holt Dry Goods. We’re an old fashioned dry goods stored, located in Athens, Alabama. Many people might not know what a dry goods store actually is, but we sell a little bit of everything from work clothes to coveralls to boots to old fashioned toys. One of my main jobs here is I handle the websites. My other owner here is Bob, who is my brother. He helps with that, too, to manage the website. We also have a local store here, in Athens.

Scott: Okay, so you do Internet and brick and mortar.

Mark: Yes, we have a brick and mortar store. Actually we have been in business since 1934, and this is our 75th year in business.

Scott: Wow, congratulations. That’s really cool. How is the Internet going for you?

Mark: Overall, it’s going pretty good. The last year or two, we’ve really kind of tried to enhance our site. We came up with a new website design about six or seven months ago. About every month or two, we try to add something to enhance it, to better serve our customers.

Scott: That website is www.grayandholtclothing.com, right?

Mark: That’s correct.

Scott: How did you hear about Trust Guard, Mark?

Mark: We are always trying to enhance it and we were trying to look for a way to give more confidence to our customers when they came to our site. We wanted to make sure our customers knew our site was safe and reliable, that they could shop, and it would build confidence in our customers. We wanted to find a company that would help with that, to convey confidence.

At the same time, we were looking for a way to increase our sales. A few months ago, we started a stats program that gave us all the information about how many visitors were coming to our site. We noticed we were increasing visitors, but it seemed we weren’t getting much of an increase in sales. Since we wanted to both increase confidence in our site and to increase sales, we started to look for a solution. As we started looking, we came across Trust Guard. The one thing that we were kind of looking for in this was a company that didn’t really have a big upfront cost.

As we were looking around different places, different companies, that seemed like the major hurdle. A lot of companies had a big upfront cost that for a small business was kind of hard to deal with. We were looking for a flexible monthly plan and one that also had a guarantee to it. As we were searching, we came across Trust Guard. The flexible monthly plan is kind of what caught our attention at first, because of not having to put up that big upfront cost.

Scott: Right, okay, I think a lot of our customers really appreciate that. You ended up putting the Trust Guard seals on your site and you actually started a split test, right?

Mark: Pretty much right when we signed up, we wanted to see how it would go with the conversion testing. One thing we noticed also on there was the double your money back guarantee. The split testing showed that if we didn’t increase then we would get double your money back so that was kind of a nice incentive to try Trust Guard out. That was kind of a nice plan that you have there. If it doesn’t work you get your money back, plus some. It’s a no-lose situation.

Scott: Exactly, that’s why we have that, because we want to challenge people to really try it out and see if it works for them. I’ve always said you should never have to pay for something that doesn’t help you make more money.

Mark: As we were looking around, many of the other companies had some sort of a guarantee, but they didn’t have the guarantee that you have.

Scott: Where did you place the seals on your site?

Mark: We placed it in three different locations. First, we wanted to make sure that every customer that came to any page on our site would see the seals. We placed the security scan seal in the upper left hand corner of every page. Next, we placed all four of the seals that you provide on the middle of the shopping cart page. Also, on the final page of checkout, we placed all four seals right below the checkout button.

Scott: That’s generally where we recommend when somebody does a split test because that’s what we’ve found gets the best results. It sounds like you put them in the right spot. So, you ran the split test and what was your reaction when the split test finished?

Mark: We were pretty excited. It came back with pretty much about a 12% increase. To actually see the results and know that what you are doing actually increased your sales, that’s a pretty good feeling.

The best part is we really didn’t have to put much effort into it. Basically, we put the Trust Guard seals on our website and let the seals work for us. It is very exciting.

Scott: It is exciting and I love to see the results on our side, because we can actually see all of our different clients’ results in real time. It’s fun to watch and see the increases happen. What kind of an increase does 12% mean to your company, Mark?

Mark: With the extra cash flow coming in from the 12% increase in sales, we’re able to improve in other areas of our website, offer more product, and improve other customer experience with our company. It’s a win-win situation for both us as a company, and our customers.

Scott: Are there any final thoughts for anyone considering getting Trust Guard?

Mark: Anyone who is considering Trust Guard, it has the best total package that we’ve found, from a flexible plan, the monthly plans, the great reputation you have, and the customer service. Going through the sign up process with you was easy.

It was a breeze and very easy to understand the split testing. To top it off, the double your money back guarantee; you just can’t go wrong with that. If anybody is considering that, when you put all that together, I don’t believe anyone else out there has the type of package that you provide.

Scott: I would agree with that. Unfortunately, you don’t get double your money back, but you get a 12% increase in your sales for the rest of your life.

Mark: I’ll take that any day.

Scott: Well good; Mark, it’s been really nice talking with you. If anybody needs dry goods, they can go to your website, which is Grayandholtclothing.com.

Mark: I appreciate it.

Scott: All right, take care, Mark.

Mark: You too, have a good day.

These Trust Guard clients increased their conversion using our Multi-Seal packages:

• SummitCampingGear.com – 33.33% increase
• FaithfulTrends.com – 19.51% increase
• SmartLifeLabs.com – 11.11% increase
• ChargedAudio.com – 13.24% increase
• CookForYourHealth.com – 48.28% increase (Anyone want to add almost 50% to their bottom line? Anyone?)
• SuperSizedCycles.com – 216.67% increase (Yes, this is real and it’s backed with a 95% confidence interval – this customer sells higher priced custom bicycles, and adding our seals made a huge impact to her sales!)

Want more results??? Our first batch of daily and quarterly PCI Security seals are just about to finish their split tests. (We just launched PCI Scanning in January. For more information or to watch our PCI launch video read our previous blog posts.) The preliminary numbers for PCI seals are looking great! So far, the combined increase for all of our clients split testing PCI seals is over 26%! As soon as we have more solid data we’ll add it here to the blog, so be sure to keep an eye out.

Till then, we will keep testing. And if you are on the fence, wondering what to do, why not take our 60 day, risk free Trust Guard Challenge. Go ahead and try our seals completely risk free for 60 days. You have nothing to lose and sales to gain!

We look forward to helping you with your security, privacy, and business verification needs.

Sincerely,

Scott Brandley, CEO
Trust Guard

When your running a split test, the larger the sample size, the more accurate the results. It also happens that more traffic gives you the ability to test more variables, as was the case with our latest split test at aplaceformom.com. Aplaceformom.com is one of the largest online lead generation websites for retirement homes across the country, getting about 8,300 visitors a day, or 250,000 visitors a month. Because of their high traffic volume, we were able to do something unique – we split tested 32 Trust Guard seal combinations all at the same time to find the highest converting seal for their particular needs.

While most of our clients use multiple Trust Guard seals on their site to maximize conversion, which is the ideal configuration, aplaceformom.com is a lead generation site and not a store, so they only qualified for two seals – the Privacy Verified seal and the Business Verified seal. In addition, they only wanted to display one seal, so we created 32 different seal options in our test – 16 Privacy and 16 Business – all with different colors, sizes, and styles – and then we rotated them in a single position on their site, directly underneath their application form.

In addition to the 32 seals, we also rotated a blank option, where no seals showed up. In the first round we narrowed the test down to the top 8 performing seals (9 including the blank option). In the second round, a clear winner began to emerge to the point where it beat all other options, but most importantly, it beat the blank ‘no seal’ option by a whopping 16.51% with a 98% confidence interval. The winner was the small blue Business Verified seal. By adding this seal to the bottom of their application, they now receive several thousand more applications per month than before. Not too shabby.

So, should you go and buy the small blue Business Verified seal for your site? Not necessarily. While this case study shows that a single seal can dramatically increase your sales, having multiple seals is always more effective because you’re able to resolve multiple customer concerns instead of just one. It’s also important to remember that each website is unique and has different demographics, so what works on one site may not work on another, which is why we have different colors, sizes, and styles available for you to choose from.

Looking back, this was a pretty fun test. I want to thank Ben Gilbert at aplaceformom.com for his willingness to participate in our test. It’s always great to work with people like Ben that can see the incredible value in split testing. The key to split testing is to keep doing it. Not every test is a winner, but by continually testing, you find winners, and you permanently improve your conversion every time a winning test is completed. I also want to thank our programmers here at Trust Guard for their ‘mad programming skills’ in putting together a test of this size and scale. For all of our future clients reading this, on behalf of myself and the Trust Guard staff, we look forward to helping you increase your conversion.