In order for your brand/website to be successful you need to build trust and credibility with your target audience. Without it, people will take their business elsewhere. Building trust and credibility takes open communication that goes both ways. It takes to time to develop but will only take seconds to lose. What takes years to build can be lost over night. Here’s a few tips to help you build trust and credibility online.
Website
What impression does your website give? There’s a good chance your website will be the first time a potential customer comes in contact with you or your company. Needless to say it’s pretty important that it makes a good first impression. You wouldn’t setup a retail store in an old dirty building, so why would you even think of doing that with your website? Would you meet business associates for the first time wearing grubby clothes? I sure as hell hope not.
Your website is not a place to skimp on your budget, yet some many people still do it. They think saving a few bucks asking their nephew to design their site is a smart decision, when in fact it probably ends up costing a lot of money in lost business down the road. A professional looking website is a must.
Marketing
What kind of marketing messages are you sending? Are you annoying people with spam such as; unsolicited email blasts, pop-ups and pop-unders, spyware, or other in-your-face sales techniques? If you are and you want a credible brand you should stop, immediately. These do nothing but piss people off.
How visible is your site? When people search for your company or keywords relevant to your website are you easily found? The more someone sees your brand around the web the more they will trust it. It’s important to invest money and time into your search engine marketing. Not only will this bring an increase in business, but it will build the credibility and trust. How can your customers trust you if they can’t even find you on Google?
Build alliances with other credible third parties.
Assurance
This is one that also deals with your website. There are little things you can do on your website that tells customers your are a trustworthy company that can easily be contacted if something goes wrong. So with that said, make the contact info prominent on your site, don’t try to hide it and don’t even think about leaving it off altogether. Make sure you have a well written ‘about page’. Let your customers know that you’ve been around awhile and you know what you’re doing.
There’s plenty of other little things you can and should do as well. For example, display your security certificates in prominent locations. Make it easy for your customers to see that you take security seriously. Are you a member of the BBB? If so then you should display the logo on your site and link it to your profile. Ask for testimonials and proudly display them on your site, often times customers are happy to do this, especially if you’ve pleased them.
You’d be suprised at how far these little things go, they really do give peace of mind and comfort to your customers.
Communication
Communicate early and often. You must be willing to admit(and take responsibility for) mistakes, deliver bad news, and openly share information. Don’t be afraid to apologize if necessary . Acknowledge and listen to what your customers have to say, let them know that you care and value their feedback. Speak in a language that is easy to understand. If problems arise then take care of them.
Bottom line: Don’t let you website fall victim to a crisis in consumer trust. Build and maintain trust and credibility and keep the lines of communication wide open. Building trust after you lose it is a hard thing to do and takes time, make sure this doesn’t happen to you.
Do you have anything you would like to add that you’ve found helps build trust and credibility.
branding, user interface, marketing, branding
Cameron Olthuis is the Founder of