5 ways you can use your website to earn your customers' trust

Prospective customers will want to know that they can trust you before they decide to invest in your products or services. And, if you’re able to earn their trust, it will help you to secure more sales, improve your brand awareness, and boost your customers’ loyalty. 

So, in this article, we’re going to look at some of the most effective ways you can use your website to get customers to trust your online business. Read on to learn more. 

Add social proof to your key web pages#

When it comes to attracting new customers, word-of-mouth recommendations are very powerful. And, one way to replicate them is by providing social proof on your website. You can do this with reviews and testimonials from customers who have done business with you in the past. You could also highlight the awards or qualifications you’ve gotten and include mentions of high-profile clients you’ve worked with.

It’s important that you provide this social proof on the most important pages of your website. For instance, you could create dedicated sections on your homepage and service pages. Some companies also create a specific web page to host all of their positive reviews. 

To give you some inspiration, let’s study how some businesses are already adding social proof to their websites. 

Bounce, a company that offers luggage storage in New York City, shows us how to effectively showcase your social proof by creating a section to highlight some of the testimonials they’ve received from past customers. The positive testimonials are all very detailed, so they provide a lot of context and additional information for potential customers who want to use this service. They’re also accompanied by simple but effective star ratings that will tell customers how great the company’s services are at a glance. 

As past customers speak so highly of the brand, these testimonials will be very useful in helping the company to earn the trust of new prospective clients. Longer testimonials like this tend to work well for service-based businesses, so keep that in mind when deciding what kind of reviews to ask your clients for. 

Four 19 Properties take a different approach when it comes to showing social proof on their Houston, Texas service page. On their site, you’ll see that they’ve decided to display some of the places where their brand has been mentioned. They highlight sites like MarketWatch, Thrive, and Business Insider, which are all notable publications. 

Showing that they’ve been recognized by these sites can help them build more trust with customers who will start to view the brand as an authority in its industry. If you have any awards, qualifications, or mentions from important organizations, displaying them in a section on your website will show you’re great at what you do and help to earn your audience’s trust. 

Finally, Pherrus Financial Services is a company that helps other business owners with tax accounting, payroll, and other bookkeeping needs. To show their future customers that they’re great at what they do, they’ve provided video testimonials from people who have used their services. 

The past clients in these videos do a great job of recounting their experience with the company and explaining how satisfied they are with the service they received. This is a great way to earn the trust of prospects who are still on the fence, as it shows that there are real people who have taken action and are happy with the results they got. 

You can replicate this for your business by requesting video testimonials from your past clients. When you do, it’s a good idea to ask them what they liked most about your services, as this is likely to resonate with those thinking about investing in what you offer.

Always strive to provide top-tier customer service #

Your customers will want to know you’re listening to them. So, if you receive any questions or concerns, you need to handle them quickly and professionally. You should also try to provide multiple customer service channels, as different people like to communicate in different ways.

Some of the communication channels you can provide include phone, email, contact forms, or live chat support for people who need immediate answers to their queries. 

You also need to make sure that you’re providing great customer service. For one, try not to take too long before answering a customer’s query. A good rule of thumb is to ensure that you return customer calls and emails within 24 hours and avoid keeping people waiting in live chats for more than a minute or two. 

Also, you need to make sure that the employees in your customer service team have good communication skills, as they’ll be interacting with prospects and customers from different backgrounds. So, they’ll need to know when to listen, when to ask the right questions, and how to communicate instructions effectively so they can help people solve their pain points. 

Publish expert content that shows you know your stuff#

If you can create website content that positions you as an expert in your field, it will show your audience that you’re trustworthy and can deliver what you promise. To do this effectively, you’ll need to focus on providing real value for your audience. 

When it comes to creating expert content, you want to make sure you’re providing actionable and valuable content that your audience will be able to benefit from. 

To give you inspiration, let’s take a look at some effective examples of expert content that some businesses have already created. 

Arielle Executive, a provider of bespoke branding services, regularly publishes expert content on their website. One great example is their piece on how the hybrid office model is here to stay after the COVID-19 pandemic forced a lot of people to work remotely. 

As you read through the post, you’ll see that they’ve explained the concept of a hybrid office model and why companies are likely to continue embracing this way of working. They also provide insights from relevant and authoritative sources to provide more value for their audience. 

After seeing how committed the company is to providing quality and helpful information, prospective customers will find it much easier to trust this brand. This is likely to then lead to more conversions. 

When creating content for your own website, consider including your own expert advice, as well as actionable tips from other leaders in your industry. This will show that you have a lot of knowledge, are well-connected, and can be trusted to deliver. 

Blumenshine Law Group, a personal injury law firm in Chicago, also has a piece of expert content on their site. This is about hit-and-run accidents and the rate at which they are increasing. 

Using their expertise and years of experience in the legal industry, they’ve created this post that sheds more light on hit-and-run accidents, what to do if you’re involved in one, and which laws surround this kind of situation. 

This is all information their target audience is likely to be interested in and it will help the firm to earn the trust of old and new customers, as it shows how much knowledge they have on the subject. 

When you’re planning to create expert content for your website, come up with relevant topics that you can apply your expertise to and that your audience is genuinely interested in reading about. You can also highlight relevant statistics and trends to further educate your audience and show you know exactly what is happening in your field. 

Make sure your site looks great and is easy to use #

Your website acts as the virtual storefront of your business and it affects customers’ experience with your brand, so you need to ensure it’s giving off the best possible first impression. One thing to note is the importance of using a clean and professional design. There’s no need to overcomplicate your website with a lot of unnecessary elements, as this can create a bad user experience for visitors. Keep things simple and your audience will appreciate it. 

You also need to ensure you’re using high-quality images and well-produced content that doesn’t have any spelling or grammatical errors. If you can’t get your copy or images right, prospective customers will find it much harder to trust that you’ll do a good job.

Plus, you’ll want to ensure that your website has been optimized for accessibility. This means making sure that your site can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities. For instance, you should include descriptive alternative text when uploading all of your images, as this helps people with screen readers. Or you can provide a search bar for people who have light sensitivity so they won’t have to spend too much time looking for products or information on your site. You could even enhance the search bar by giving it voice search capabilities. The more accessible your site is, the better. 

Focus on humanizing your business#

Customers will be far more comfortable if they feel like they’re dealing with a person rather than a faceless entity. So, to earn their trust, try to make sure you put a face to your business using your website. This tactic is useful for making your website more engaging and will help people to feel a stronger connection to your business. 

There are many ways you can use your website to humanize your business. You could create an ‘about us’ page where you display photos of your staff. You can also introduce your workers through blog posts, or publish behind-the-scenes content that shows your audience what you do and reveals a playful side to your team. 

As you do this, try to make sure the images or videos you display on your site show your employees while they’re happy or smiling. The reason for this is that it will make your audience feel more at ease and can increase the chances that people will start to trust your business. 

To give you some inspiration, let’s study some websites that are already using this technique well.

Aura Imaging is a company that manufactures specialist photography equipment and software. And, on their homepage, you’ll see that they talk about the company’s founder while displaying his picture. They mention how he invented the Aura Camera 6000 and also include some heartfelt words from him to the audience. 

This is a great way to introduce people to the founder of the brand and it could go a long way in encouraging their audience to trust the company and its mission. You can do something similar on your website by displaying the pictures of your company’s founders or management and including a note from them to your ideal customers so they can get familiar with your brand. 

Finally, take a look at the website of SchoolLockers.com, a company that manufactures a wide range of storage solutions. To humanize their business, they’ve included a video on their homepage that introduces visitors to the company’s employees and even some customers of the business. 

This allows people to see the faces behind the company, which could help to foster a connection and increase the trust they have in the brand. If you want to replicate something like this for your website, try to create a video that introduces people to your employees so they can get acquainted with your company and start trusting you. Remember to use video clips where your team is smiling, too, so your audience will feel at ease. 

Summary#

If you’re able to earn the trust of prospective customers, it’ll make it easier to earn their purchases. In this article, we’ve outlined some of the ways you can use your website to earn your customers’ trust. They’re all very effective, so it’s best you start implementing them now. 

And, if you want to get more tips and strategies for managing your business and customers, check out the JivoChat blog.

Alex Ratynski is the founder of Ratynski Digital, an online marketing consultancy that focuses on helping small and medium-sized businesses achieve their goals. He set up his company after working as a local SEO director for a dental marketing agency, where he helped to turn clients’ ventures into thriving multi-million dollar businesses. He spends most hours strategizing SEO for his clients.