10 ways to build trust & credibility through your website so you can

convert more customers

James Banksw: web3.com.au t: @_jamesbanks

Why should I care?- If your potential customers do not trust you, your product, your service, your brand or your business, they will be incredibly reluctant to buy from you

- 98% of B2B customers only buy once a certain level of trust has been established

- B2B business owners and sales teams often spend a lot of time building a relationship and establishing trust with a potential customer, only to have their reputation torpedoed by their dodgy looking website

1. USE TESTIMONIALS & REVIEWS: 79% OF CONSUMERS TRUST ONLINE REVIEWS AS MUCH AS PERSONAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Testimonial Quick Tips

• Don’t have any testimonials? Look back on your email/text/meeting/phone messages with your customers and build out a testimonial based on previous praise and ask for approval

• Use you customer’s full name, position and business. Adds more credibility to the testimonial

• If it’s okay with them, have a photo of your customer along with their testimonial

• Don’t clump all your testimonials in one area on your website. Spread them across key areas of conversion i.e homepage, services, product page, checkout page etc.

2. LEVERAGING TRUST-BUILDING FACTS ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS

3. USING BUSINESS AWARDS OR RECOGNITION

• Anthill Awards• Startup Smart Awards• The Australian Startup Awards• Australian Achiever Awards• Australian Business Awards• Australian Customer Service Awards• Australian Export Awards• Australian Small Business Champion Awards• Australian SME Business Awards• BEC (Business Enterprise Centres) Australia Awards• CeBIT.AU Business Awards• Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards• Fairtrade Business Awards• Family Business Australia Awards• MyBusiness Awards• Smart Company Awards• Telstra Business Awards

List of Australian Business Awards

4. PLACES YOU’VE BEEN FEATURED IN THE PRESS

5. NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO ARE CUSTOMER OR ON YOUR DATABASE

6. SOCIAL PROOFING - USING LIKES OR SHARES COUNTERS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

7. IF YOU’RE SELLING ONLINE, USE TRUST SEALS

8. AIM FOR A GREAT DESIGN - BENCHMARK OFF THE BEST DESIGNED WEBSITES IN YOUR INDUSTRY

For the test, 15 participants were directed to search the internet for health information that was relevant to them, and then they were asked to discuss their first impressions of the websites they visited.

Of all the factors that were mentioned for rejecting or mistrusting a website, 94% were design related. Most common objections where:

• Inappropriate name for the website • Complex, busy layout • Lack of navigation aids • Boring web design, especially use of color • Pop up advertisements • Slow introductions to a site (splash pages, slow-loading flash

introductions, etc) • Small print • Too much text • Corporate look and feel • Poor search facilities/indexed

The Crazy Egg Test

9. TRIPLE CHECK YOUR WEBSITE COPY

https://www.fiverr.com/gigs/spellcheck

10. AN ACTIVE BLOG PRODUCING QUALITY CONTENT

10 key action items 1. Use testimonials that focus on the unique selling points of your product/service and place them

throughout your website

2. Use logos of well-known awards and recognitions that you’ve achieved on your website’s homepage

3. Use logos of well-known publications that you’ve been featured in on your homepage

4. If you have large enough database, use that number as a trust-building fact on your website.

5. Place trust-building facts about business on your website

6. If you have a large enough social following, place social counters on your website to create social proof

7. If you’re handing money over your site, use trust seals

8. Check out other world-class designs from your industry and aim to achieve a similar level of design quality on your own website

9. Make sure your content has been proofed. If you don’t want to do it yourself, outsource it and pay someone to do it for you.

10. Download our Content Marketing Idea validator template, and validate your content ideas before you start producing them.