Most online visitors will click on your business website and size it up in a matter of seconds. By taking a few critical steps to build a website that appeals to prospective customers—and conveys legitimacy and trustworthiness—you dramatically increase the odds that they will linger on your site and purchase your products or services.
Here are ways to make potential customers visitors comfortable with your site and interested in exploring more.
Always offer content of value
Information that’s relevant and presented in an engaging fashion, free of overt self-promotion, builds trust with users. Content about your products or services should be geared toward highlighting benefits, rather than features. First and foremost, customers want to know, “What’s in it for me?
Craft a welcoming “About Us” page
Potential customers want to know the company they’re dealing with. Your “About Us” page must be informative, well-written to clearly outline how you’re committed to serving your target audience. To help establish trust, include the names of key individuals with their photographs, along with brief bios that help illustrate your company’s values. This is also the place to highlight business achievements, awards and affiliations with trusted organizations, such as the Better Business Bureau.
Share testimonials and case studies
Someone visiting your website for the first time naturally wants to know what the buyer experience has been like for others. Adding testimonials and reviews reinforces the impression that customers are happy to buy from you and willing to do so again in the future. Of course, these testimonials must be authentic, with real names attached to them. It’s also a good idea to include links to these satisfied customers’ websites. If your business has user reviews on sites like Yelp, Angie’s List or Yahoo Local, share the links with newcomers so they can get a favorable third-party opinion about your company.
Case studies are another useful tool. Prospective customers are drawn to compelling product success stories, with supporting evidence and statistics, particularly if you can demonstrate how your offerings solved a user’s pressing problem. If possible, include a healthy sampling of case studies to show the depth and range of your offerings.
Provide ample “Contact Us” information
One surefire way to raise suspicions among new visitors to your website is by offering vague or confusing contact information. To be effective, contact information should be easily accessible on every page of your site. This information should include a name, email address and telephone number. In the case of a physical location, be sure to feature the address or PO Box, city and zip code. A link to a map is also helpful.
Offer a secure, user-friendly website
Potential customers need to know that any transactions they conduct on your site are completely secure. Protect their information with SSL encryption so it can’t be stolen or used by other parties.
On a more basic level, every link on every page must work every time. One or two broken links is all it takes for a visitor to lose faith in your enterprise. Easy navigation—making anything you want the customer to see no more than two clicks away—is also essential. Avoid using intrusive pop-up ads, which only annoy or frustrate prospective buyers.
Today’s savvy customers know within minutes whether they want to do business with you. If certain key ingredients are missing or your value proposition isn’t immediately clear, they won’t hesitate to move on to a competitor’s site. On the other hand, building trust through your website’s content and clearly defined benefits makes the decision to stay and purchase even easier.