Every transaction involves a degree of trust.
If you think online consumers tend to be more trusting than those who visit brick-and-mortar stores, you’re making a huge mistake.
With scammers and fake websites flooding the web, it’s no wonder that many users distrust online products and services.
Some of them will go to great lengths in researching and discovering online scams.
That’s why it’s in your best interest to demonstrate your proof of legitimacy and enjoy higher conversion rates.
Here are 6 essential tips on how to gain trust online.
1. Create a genuine voice
Whatever you say on your blog or social media, keep your voice authentic, human and full of passion for your topic. Users will be able to easily tell whether you’re a human or robot, and sensing a real human presence behind your words will make them more inclined to trust you.
People who read blogs are just as interested in the information itself as they are in getting to know the author. Be open about who you are and what your business is about, and you won’t regret it.
2. Be transparent
On the web, honesty really is the best policy. Instead of hiding your mistakes, you should highlight them and show the human face behind your business. Being honest to consumers about what you did wrong and how you fixed your mistake will help you create more trust. By hiding your mistakes, deleting negative comments and trying to put the blame on someone else, you’ll not only ruin your reputation, but reduce your legitimacy.
If you’re convinced that everything published on the web can be deleted or hidden, you’re making a huge mistake – data from the Internet can be retrieved from many sources, including print screens made consumers irritated or angry about a company’s behaviors online.
3. Provide contact information
To show that you’re running a legitimate business, make sure to fill the contact page on your website with all possible means of contact, including your:
- mailing address
- telephone numbers
A generic email might feel sketchy to some consumers. Including emails of your employees together with links to their social profiles – for instance, Twitter or LinkedIn – is a great idea and will instantly make your business more approachable and human.
4. Share user reviews & testimonials
Including external reviews of your products and user testimonials is an effective way to gain consumers’ trust. Their purchasing decision will be based on what they read online about your business and product, so you can make their job easier by including links to external praise yourself.
Having 5000 visitors a day or a 1000 new social media followers is something to be celebrated – it will also show that your business is being recognized by others as legitimate. Every form of third-party validation will be beneficial to your operation.
5. Be helpful
This is the basic principle for a content marketing geared at building trust. Use your online channels like blogs or social media networks to add value to the community surrounding your sector.
Providing valuable information, solving problems and answering questions, you’ll be on your way to building a strong status for yourself and your brand as an industry expert – and experts can be trusted! If you demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about, your reputation alone will convince users that your business is legitimate.
6. Personalize your business
There’s no better way of gaining consumers’ trust than by showing who are the people behind your business. Sharing employee profiles, showing photos of internal life at the company or giving regular updates about company events and anniversaries, you’ll not only build your brand as an employer but also show yourself as a professional business that can be trusted.
When creating your content, make sure to add a photo of yourself to show you’re a real person. Videos of you talking are a great way to give personality to your brand and appear genuine.
Your real desire to help people, combined with a fair degree of business transparency, should be enough to win over the most distrusting consumers out there.
Use various social media to create quality content that showcases your expertise and legitimacy as a brand, and you can be sure that users who research your brand or product won’t find anything that will make their ‘scam alarm’ go off.
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