All online businesses ask their clients to hand over at least one or two of the following: their name, email address, phone number and the most personal of all, credit card details! Come to think of it, why would anyone even do that unless and until they trust the source they are handing over their personal information to. If that is how it works, how then do you make a person trust you and your business?
As much as we all wish that everyone would understand and use the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, nevertheless the first impression still makes the basis of every relationship and there’s nothing really that we can do about it. Trust is a factor that develops gradually, however if your first impression is unreliable, you are going to face some major difficulties gaining clients!
The same is true for online businesses, that run through websites which features whatever service or product the owner is promoting on it. Simply put, if you want to gain more profit in your businesses, you need to make more clients and in order to make more clients, you need to develop a sense of trust with your website visitors so that they feel safe disclosing their personal information. Now this is where it gets a little tricky, how does one develop a sense of trust with their website visitors?
Building Trust with Your Website Visitors
Do you know why why visitors have absolutely no issue sharing their personal information with websites such as Amazon, Ebay, Facebook, Google and others? You guessed it! These websites have gained the trust of millions and even billions of people over their years by simply being trustworthy in their dealings and thus building their excellent reputation. Developing a sense of trust and earning a good reputation, is the basis for growing and building a business.
How do you create a good and trustworthy reputation especially when you are a new business aspiring to achieve far-fetched profits? We understand that it’s fairly impossible not to “judge a book by its cover”, all you have to do is design a cover page innovatively, so that the visitor is not only lured to delve deeper into your site, but also feels compelled to develop a customer-seller relationship with you.
A few things which you can add to your website or landing page to make the book’s cover more appealing and to make it stand out:
- Social Proof – this is a phenomenon whereby people use the actions of others as a social proof that those actions reflect the correct behaviour. A person feels safer buying a product when he gets to know others have bought it before them and have had a great experience. Companies use various types of social proof methodologies in order to gain more customers. There are social proof marketing platforms that do that for you like ProveSource.
- Contact information – Including contact information on your landing page shows that you are a company dedicated to customer service, by being just a call away for the provision of any kind of service. This also shows that you are not a scam and are in fact a registered company having real staff managing your customer service for you.
- Display your Awards and Certifications – Any awards that you have received should come at the forefront of your website because it shows to the visitors that you are recognized for the efforts that you put up in your products.
- Customers served – It’s extremely important to show the number of clients that you have served recently, which can prove to be a good way to show your presence in the industry. Make sure that the logos of the companies that you have served are put up on your website. The more reputed your client logo is, the more site visitor will appreciate and trust your abilities.
- Reviews or testimonials – Companies often post testimonials from their clients to show the website visitors how a satisfied user of their product or service was with them. This brings in more customers as people understand that they are not the first ones to experiment with the product and it is relatively safe. You can add testimonials inside your web-page, or show them with a popup.
- Mentions in press – Press is extremely important for the reputation of any website since it makes the first impression on its viewers. Any mention in press helps to advertise your company making sure it gains popularity and the more heard-of your website is, the more trust it gains.
- Social media following – The number of people who are following you on social media and are reviewing it, shows how connected you are to the outside world. This also means that your actions are being held accountable by your followers which act as a guarantee for your client. If you put a comment box underneath your website and allow your visitors to share their comments, it will not only act as a suggestion box but will also show that you are not afraid of what people have to say about you.
- Years of experience – The more experience you have in field, the more advantageous it will prove to be for you since a company which has been functioning for multiple years must have experience in the field, which acts as a guarantee for their products.
- Be transparent – Any friendship gains more trust and changes into a bond as people share stuff with each other. Similarly, when a company becomes transparent with their clients, this marks the beginning of trust. When you are open about all the information relating to your customer’s experience, it will make your customer feel like you are not hiding anything such as hidden additional costs or fine print etc.
Bottom line
Online businesses are all about gaining the user’s trust. Your efforts should be invested in proving to your customer that the product you are offering them is exactly what they need.
