How to Increase Your Website’s Trust Factor
Trust is a huge part of what makes something successful online – and a defining factor in why people may choose your business over another’s. There are many ways to increase trust online, both on your own website and in your outreach to others. Here we’ll explain a little bit about those methods and how they might make a difference to your business.
Testimonials
One of the simplest and easiest ways to increase trust on your website and for your business – add testimonials to your site. It’s been more or less proven through a process known as ‘social proof’ that people will tend to copy and emulate others in an attempt to reflect appropriate or successful behaviour.
Testimonials can be relatively easy to obtain and make a big difference to the conversion rate of your website.
Create a Story
There’s something inherently mistrusting about a website that appears out of nowhere and has an offering, supposedly better than what else is out there, without having a backstory or a reason behind its existence.
In the age of start ups, and with the ease of creating a business heavily promoted, stories are being created to heighten interest as well as providing potential customers with a concept and an idea of who the people are involved and what they offer. Not only interesting, a story behind your business makes potential customers know and believe there are real, human people behind it, which can only be a good thing.
Good Photography
We all know people are attracted to things that look good, and in an online sense the trust has just gone when it comes to poorly taken, poorly lit stock photography. There are a number of great websites that provide a home for quality stock photography – should you wish to go down this route. Whatever happens you need to make sure your web design, photography, presentation and general outlook is spot on. This not only creates trust that you know what you’re doing, but that you are aware of how your brand comes across and that you’ve thought about the little details.
Authentic Social Media Presence
There’s nothing worse than what seems like a legitimate business spamming customers, or buying social media followers to boost their reputation. Eventually, it gets you nowhere, and the small boost you’ll get will soon be counteracted by spam and a loss of trust from people who would ordinarily be in the market to purchase from you. Google can see straight through it, and with most people online being incredibly savvy, they’ll see straight through it too.
Good Design and UX
Along with a good, trustworthy social media presence and excellent aesthetics on your site, you need to make sure your site is well designed. There’s nothing worse, or nothing that saps confidence more, than endless pop ups, sites that don’t scroll properly or sites that constantly ask you for details and put up barriers. Trust your audience, and they’ll trust you.
