You might not realize it, but many of your visitors don’t fully trust you when they first visit your site and read whatever information you’ve posted, or purchase your products and services.
This is with good reason, and if you’re not well-known (ahem, you’re not an Amazon or a Google), then you might need to earn their trust. This might not be fair, especially if you’ve done everything right and have never had a security breach. However, that’s the way it is and you have to play by the rules. The good news is that there are many ways to earn trust, and many of them benefit you, are free, and easy to implement.
One of the best ways to build trust is to make sure the tools and resources you rely on yourself are trustworthy. For starters, do you you have secure hosting from a trustworthy and well-known provider? After all, it is their servers that your customer and visitor data will be residing on.
Trust Takes Time
Many studies have shown that the slower your site loads, the less trustworthy you appear. A percentage of visitors will abandon your site and never return. Some will stick around, but will build up negative emotions and connotations with your site as their frustrations around slow page load times increase.
Solid hosting is of course the foundation for the speed of any site, but your web developer can also work wonders. Make sure responsive design and mobile readiness are taken care of, and always be checking to see how you can decrease your load times.
Another tell-tale sign that you’re untrustworthy? A low quality site overall. This can include a broken theme or layout, typos, or using the wrong voice with your online content. Maybe you have old information on your site, it’s tough to navigate, or you have annoying pop-ups. If your site reads as low quality, that means your business reads as low quality and a lack of trust is inherent. When’s the last time you updated your site? If you can’t remember, it’s time for an overhaul.
Stand Out in the Right Ways
Search engine optimization can also play a big role in building trust. Your clients may or may not know what this means. However, especially if you’re a local business who benefits from local SEO, think about it. What happens if you’re one of the only kundalini yoga studios in Midtown, USA? When someone Googles “kundalini Midtown” and you don’t even show up on the first page of Google results, (1) they may never find you; and (2) if they do, they’ll wonder why you’re so far down in the search results.
Trust also comes from your customer service — big time! Make it easy to reach a live person, preferably 24/7. How you train and support your agents lets you dictate the face of your company.
