Accreditation badges on your website: which to show

Key takeaways

Accreditation badges build credibility when buyers recognise them and can verify them. Show the regulators, registrations and schemes your buyers care about, add your registration number and link to the official register. Leave off badges buyers do not know or that you no longer hold. Five relevant badges beat fifteen obscure ones.

• Show accreditations your buyers recognise and care about.
• Add registration numbers and link to the official register.
• Remove expired memberships and unknown badges.
• Place key badges next to quote and contact actions.

Why do accreditation badges build credibility?

Accreditation badges build credibility because they are third-party proof: an independent body has checked you. Fogg and Tseng called this reputed credibility. They also trigger presumed credibility when the scheme is well known, such as Gas Safe for gas engineers or the Solicitors Regulation Authority for law firms. Recognition and verifiability are what make them work.

• How website design influences brand credibility
• The four types of website credibility, explained

Which badges should you show?

Prioritise in this order:

• Legal registrations required for your work, such as Gas Safe or SRA.
• Government-endorsed schemes, such as TrustMark for home improvements.
• Recognised trade bodies and professional institutes.
• Security and data standards, such as Cyber Essentials, for B2B buyers.
• Platform partner badges only where buyers care about them.

• How tradespeople build trust with their website
• Solicitor website credibility: SRA rules and trust

How do you make badges verifiable?

Add your registration or membership number beside each badge and link it to the scheme's public register or your listing on it. Use the official logo files and follow the scheme's usage rules; many schemes publish them. Verifiable badges are more credible, and unverifiable ones invite doubt.

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Which badges should you leave off?

Leave off badges for schemes buyers do not recognise, memberships that have lapsed, pay-to-display 'trust' seals with no real checks, and partner badges for tools unrelated to the buyer's decision. A strip of unknown logos adds clutter and can look like padding. Showing a badge you no longer hold is misleading.

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What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: a heating firm shows ten badges in the footer, including two expired memberships, while its Gas Safe registration has no number. Removing the expired ones and placing the Gas Safe badge with its number and register link next to the quote button makes the most important proof the most prominent.

• See client work
• Website Design & Development for UK businesses

Accreditation checklist

• List every accreditation you currently hold.
• Remove lapsed or irrelevant badges.
• Add registration numbers and register links.
• Use official logo files and follow usage rules.
• Place key badges near quote and contact actions.

• The website credibility score: rate your site out of 10
• Prominence-interpretation theory: what visitors notice

Next step

Check every badge on your site is current. Then link your most important one to its public register.