Why Trust Matters and How to Earn it

Trust is important and huge for creating a sustainable business that would make a difference in the world. Everything you do online should be done to increase the trust that others have in you, and also in your brand. The “others” in this context, refers to the human visitors to your website, and also the search engine spiders. You can be sure of long-term success if you can secure the trust of these two audiences.

 Trust is crucial for online marketing, and you can’t achieve success without it. You can make a quick buck without trust, but you can be sure that it’d catch up with you eventually. Think about the businesses you patronize regularly, your doctor, your insurance agent, and so on. These set of individuals have your business because you trust them to give you quality. It’s important always to have the mindset “will this help my customers trust me more?”. Having this type of mindset consistently would help you filter think through everything you do. As an illustration, your website may be functional and attractive, but if it doesn’t contain credible information, then this might limit the “trustworthiness” browsers will experience. In addition, having information that isn’t credible on your website can also limit your rankings as Google has improved significantly in identifying and detecting if a page provides relevant information for web searches. Overall, trust leads to satisfied and happy customers, would lead to customers that would return to your business, and then mouth referrals that would eventually lead to new customers and improve the growth of the business.

What Is Trust?

People have different definitions of trust. However, the one thing that stands out is that trust is everything to a sustainable business model. Consumers have left businesses in droves because of the loss of trust. It has been shown that it’s easier to build trust offline because people can easily walk into our office, store and so on. However, trust is difficult to build when you run an e-company. You don’t have the same signals, so you have to build them.

How to Earn a User’s Trust?

As earlier mentioned, it’s easier to build trust offline. This is because people can easily walk into your store, office and check out what your product or services. However, some of the ways of earning people’s trust are by putting a face to the organization. People want to interact with a human. You should put some real pictures of your staff online. People are interested in knowing who is behind the organization. You should endeavor to answer people’s questions even before they realize they have one. Provide them with the information they need up front. In addition, you’re human and are allowed to make mistakes and faults. However, you should be swift in admitting any mistake and promptly apologize. Authenticity is the name of the game. If you run b2b company, putting up the logo of your company would go a long way in establishing credibility. Also, you shouldn’t forget to listen and respond to your customers.

  • Make better products: One of the best ways of gaining the trust of your clients is by making and delivering a superior product, and service. People easily get caught up in designing coupons, social media, cutting corners, expanding locations and so on. While it’s important to invest resources and time on digital marketing, it’s important to make a quality product or service.
  • It’s all about trust: Trust is a competitive advantage for growing your customer base. However, it’s also an advantage for search engine optimization. Studies have shown that even with the best SEO service, you’ll find it difficult getting to rank on the first page of search results, for your keywords.
  • Trust can also be improved by providing good web usability and comfortable user experience. In addition, disclosing your physical location to your clients, makes them trust you a whole lot more, as they know they can reach you. Other conditions that may improve your “trustworthiness” include offering guarantees and return policies, highlighting affiliations, such as involvement in trade associations, featuring customer’s review on your page and so on.
  • Common sense: Doing the basic things well, increases the trust your visitors would have for you. As an illustration, good writing, clean design, an error-free site, and easy-to-use checkout process all combine to build trust. In addition, you should strive to satisfy expectations. If your search results imply that you sell original Italian shoes, you shouldn’t lure people into buying fake Italian shoes. Never promise what you can’t or won’t fulfill.
  • Get a third-party approval: Another way of improving your “trustworthiness” is by getting a third-party approval. You could use the service of Scanalert, or other services in helping you check your site for security issues. You should also place the badge on your website. Studies have shown that security badges do improve the conversion rate.
  • You shouldn’t ask for unnecessary information: It’s important to not ask for unnecessary information. This is because people are quite suspicious, especially with the type of information they share on the internet. As an illustration, you shouldn’t ask for your visitor’s phone contact, if you already have their email address. In addition, you shouldn’t ask them to create an account before they can buy from your website. Asking for unnecessary information from potential clients would drive customers away.
  • Treat your customers right: The best way to earn the trust of your client is by treating the users the way you think they expect to be treated, then go a step beyond. One way of doing this is by delivering the products or services even beyond what the clients expect.
  • Consistency and honesty: When engaging in digital marketing, especially through social media, you should ensure you’re consistent, honest and transparent in your motives and intentions. As an illustration, if you promise to do one thing, and then does something different, people might start losing their trust in you. It’s easy to get caught if you lie on social media, as there is a lot of information online at people’s disposal. On the social web, there is no middle ground; it’s either consumers trust you, or they don’t.

References

Why Trust Matters & How To Earn It : Small Business Search Marketing. (2019). Retrieved from http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/trust/1107/

Why Trust Matters in the Workplace | Insightlink Communications. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.insightlink.com/why-trust-matters-in-the-workplace.html

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