It’s called Shopper Approved.

Shopper Approved is a state-of-the-art customer rating and review service, specifically designed to help e-commerce websites effectively gather, and then prominently display customer feedback, in order to help entice, educate and motivate new potential customers to buy.

We’ve been running several live-beta tests over the last couple months, and the results have been nothing short of amazing, with nearly 1 out of every 2 customers providing initial ratings and/or reviews, and almost 1 out of every 3 customers opting-in to fill out a full survey once they receive their order!

People in our beta test are getting tons of great ratings, reviews and testimonials – all automatically! This is the kind of social proof every website needs.

We’re just about to officially open the doors, but before we do, we need your help in choosing the final seal design from 3 possible contenders.

Please select the overall seal design below that:

1 – you like the best, and
2 – that you think your customers will be most likely to respond to

Once again, thank you for your participation and ongoing support. On behalf of myself and everyone here at Trust Guard, I want you to know that we appreciate the opportunity to serve you, and we look forward to working with you in 2010!

Sincerely,

Scott Brandley, CEO
Trust Guard

We’ve tested Trust Guard against some of our major competitors, and the results are amazing (so look for the big news in February of next year)!

Anyways, as I was talking to him, he told me he was going to be in Vegas next month to meet with his partners on his 7 Figure Code re-launch. That caught my interest.

Turns out he’s decided to give away 10,000, yes that’s Ten Thousand copies of his best-selling ‘7 Figure Code‘ course away for free!

He’s sold thousands of copies of this course for $1,297 and now he’s giving it away. The best part is that there are no catches, no monthly commitments, no fixed continuity or any of that stuff.

The one catch however, is that he’s giving all 10,000 away on a first come, first served basis starting on Dec. 15th, BUT you can go get on the early-bird list right now. Just go to http://download.the7figurecode.com and sign up to get your free copy today!

For those of you that know Mike, he is a great guy and he has helped literally tens of thousands of website owners build, improve, and run their businesses online.

This is a very unique opportunity to learn from one of the best internet marketers on the planet, and the price is right.

At least go check out the short video on his re-launch site at http://download.the7figurecode.com

Till next time!

Scott Brandley, CEO
Trust Guard

We anticipate 2010 to be an incredible year for Trust Guard, with anticipated seal views exceeding 2.5 billion by over 400 million people.

In an effort to continually improve our services, we feel that a new, modern seal design should be added to our lineup, which is why we would like to propose the addition of our new Trust Guard ‘Chrome’ design.

While the new Chrome design retains the 4 standard sizes, we’ve decided to make it one solid color instead of the traditional two-tone design. What makes the Chrome seal stand out, is the use of color hues to make it appear to be reflective, like chrome or glass. We’ve also added some additional color options to the Chrome design that aren’t available in our other seal designs, namely charcoal and silver.

So, what do you think? We would love to know! Please cast your vote below.

Thank you again for your valuable feedback as we continue to help you improve your online trust, security, and conversion. Please leave more feedback and comments below.

Attention – all members that signed up before February 2008! Important Announcement!

While most of our members have upgraded to our new member control panel and custom seals, there are still some of you that signed up before February 2008 that are using our very old, non-custom seals. You should have received an email informing you that all old non-custom seals are being discontinued on December 31st, 2009. Please log into your new member control panel and update your seals with your new custom seal code before the end of the year to avoid any interruptions in your service.

Thanks again from all of us here at Trust Guard.

Happy Holidays!

Scott Brandley, CEO
Trust Guard

“It Will Include Major Trust Certifications Within Its Search Results by adding… VeriSign, buySAFE, Trust Guard and Other Trust Seals To Help Shoppers Make Informed Choices Upfront”

You can find out more about this announcement in a press release at Businesswire.com.

TheFind is a unique shopping search engine that currently attracts over 13 million shoppers every month, and is built upon a philosophy of being the most comprehensive shopping destination online.  What is amazing is that TheFind has sent traffic to over 100,000 unique retailers just in the last 30 days!

They recently launched a new Merchant Center for every merchant – large or small – who wants greater visibility and relevance within TheFind’s search results.  Simply log in to clain your store and submit your key information – including payment and shipping options, Twitter and blog URLs, customer service links and more – so that TheFind can share it with shoppers and help increase your store’s relevance and conversion rates.

Once you’ve claimed your store, you’ll be able to submit coupons and promotions and upload your logo and physical store locations.  Also, be sure to join your peers in their new UpFront Program which gives you an added boost of visibility and transparency.

For a limited time, TheFind is waiving the annual UpFront service fee for Trust Guard verified merchants, so be sure to join before the critical Holiday shopping season.

Here’s TheFind’s instructions on how it works:

1)      Create an account in our new merchant center: https://merchant.thefind.com/.

2)      Tell us more about your store by filling out the profile questions.  This information will appear on our site with your product listings.

3)      Verify your store by placing the code of TheFind button, badge or link that you would like to display on your homepage and then clicking on verify.  Shoppers will be able to click on the UpFront badge on your site and see a pop-up with the same information that appears on TheFind.

4)      That’s it!  As long as you leave the UpFront badge up on your site, you’re a member of the program and you’ll receive all of the benefits (including increased visibility on our site) that come with it!

If you can’t place the UpFront badge or text link on your homepage right now, you should still log in and tell TheFind’s database more about your site – the more information they have about your store, the more relevant your results will be in the search algorithm and the easier it will be for you to connect with the millions of shoppers who visit TheFind website every month.

To learn more, go to: https://merchant.thefind.com and http://www.thefind.com/upfront.

To See How Trust Guard Is Integrated Into TheFind…

Simply visit an example store at:

http://www.thefind.com/search?query=store%3Aair-tites

You will need to drag your mouse over any tile and when the popup opens, click on the ABOUT STORE tab to see information about the retailer that is a verified Trust Guard Member.

Here is the quote from Neil Parmar at SmartMoney.com Magazine:

With more than 70 retailers and payment processors since 2006 reporting breached customer data, it’s no surprise consumers look for certified safety seals like VeriSign and Trust Guard on retail Web sites.

In the article, author Neil Parmar writes about the rise in identity theft and offers different measures consumers can take to protect themselves from breaches in consumer data. Parmar writes about a few ways to safeguard credit card information when shopping on the Internet. He suggests that consumers look for a certified safety seal, like the Trust Guard seal, before making a purchase online.

The article suggests that consumers need to take preventative measures against the rise in identity theft and consumer fraud in recent years due, in part, to the current economy.

The Wall Street Journal owns SmartMoney Magazine and SmartMoney.com. The goal of the magazine is to present ways to save, invest, and spend money. According to the publication’s mission, they “stress consumer service with action-oriented information.” The magazine itself has won three Pulitzer Prizes and three National Magazine Awards. Forbes Magazine has on multiple occasions named SmartMoney.com “Best of the Web.”

The 2009 holiday season is rapidly approaching and consumers need to be more careful and exercise caution when making online purchases. Trust Guard is an ideal solution for websites looking to confirm that they are reputable destinations where consumers can feel safe making a purchase.

Now more than ever it is time that you as a small business owner take control of your business and give the consumers what they want, which is security, privacy, and reliability. With Trust Guard you have this opportunity. Don’t wait any longer Get Trust Guard Today!

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

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’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.