Some of you are saying, “duh,” but judging by the number of ugly, hard-to-use websites out there, not everyone understands this principle: people trust things that look better and are easier to use. I’m sure I’ve also read an article about how this is true with people too—beautiful people seem more trustworthy than ugly ones. (If you find the article that talks about this, please let me know.)

There are a couple implications of this rule. The one you’re not supposed to take away from this is that if you’re a scammer, making your web site look more professional will catch more people. The correct thing we should learn from this study is that if you’re a legitimate business trying to provide value to your customers, making your web site look better will help your visitors feel that legitimacy.