Four Ways to Create Trust with Your Business Website

When you're in business to make money, you need to establish a sense of trust between you and your customer. You need to make sure they trust you are providing them with a quality product or service; you need the customer to trust that you will be available for questions and concerns; and you need to be sure your customer trusts you to be available in the future for things they need. This is a heavy burden to carry on your online shoulders, but there are plenty of ways that your business website can begin to establish this trust today.

Have Superior Contact Options

People are being taught these days that if websites don't have contact information, they are not to be trusted. You should be sure that all of your contact links and options are all functioning properly and are available whenever you have said they will be available. This will help a customer trust that you are someone who genuinely cares about them and their queries. If you are unable to available at all hours, you may want to include an extensive Help system or a FAQ section that will address smaller questions as they come up.

Check your contact information regularly from off your site and on your site to be sure that all is in working order.

Show Your Credentials

If you have credentials that will establish you as someone to trust, be sure to list these on your site. When you have a team working for you, you may want to create a separate page with their resumes or at least a list of their licenses and other qualifying credentials. This will help to show the customer that you are someone that knows what they are talking about. Of course, these credentials will need to be legitimate and able to be checked by those who are interested. If you can, try scanning your documents onto your website for further proof.

Become a Forum Poster

To further spread your trust, you might want to interact with your customers or just people who are interested in your market through community forums. These websites can help you find out what customers are interested in as well as help to establish you as someone that is trustworthy. Be sure to interact and answer people's questions without trying to sell your site or your products. You can always leave your website address on your posting, but the main goal should be to show that you are interested in helping out others with your knowledge.

Write Articles for Other Websites

There's nothing better than showing off your knowledge in articles that you've written. By submitting well-written articles to article directories and general article sites (eHow, ezarticles, etc.) you can show that you are willing to share information for free with others and that you are well-informed in your specific market. Write about topics that are current and relevant for your prospective customers and also have links to these articles on your website.

You might also want to include testimonials from previous customers as well as noteworthy people on your website. This will show people that you have succeeded with others in the past and that you are someone that might be worth buying from. Be sure that your testimonials are genuine and that they are believable as well. Many online buyers are wary of these notes because they can be easily manufactured.

The more knowledge you share with your customers, the more trustworthy you will seem. And in doing so, you are going to subtly persuade them to buy from you and not from anyone else.