Customers often treat businesses like new acquaintances: they hold them to certain expectations and build relationships with those who prove themselves worthy. Using their money, your ideal customers will engage with companies who won’t let them down.

With that in mind, you must build trust with your customers. Cultivating credibility can lead to several key benefits, including:

• More sales
• More brand awareness
• More customer loyalty
• More business opportunities

As an online business owner, the best way to build customer loyalty and trust is through your website. It’s up to you to design a site that looks trustworthy and behaves in a way that upholds that image.

To help you, let’s look at five ways you can use your website to earn the trust of your customers and grow your online presence.

1.Always offer high-quality customer service

Offering consistent, high-quality customer service is a surefire way to build trust and improve customer loyalty. Your customers want to feel heard so, if you receive questions or concerns, you need to handle them quickly and professionally.

Different people like to communicate in different ways, so it’s essential they have options. This means you should offer multiple customer service channels on your website.

For example, offer a simple contact form, a live chat option, and a phone number to ensure customers can pick and choose how they contact you.

Here are some tips for offering top-notch customer service that will build your brand’s credibility.

• Offer help through social media channels
• Montior and improve your response times
• Ensure customers don’t have to repeat themselves
• Track your customer satisfaction score with brief post-contact surveys
• Develop a multi-channel strategy to meet customers where they are

Another way to improve your customer service is to make essential information readily available on your website. Publish resources like instruction manuals, FAQs, or demonstration videos that allow customers to get the answers to their questions quickly. This content will also be beneficial for your SEO strategy, so it’s a win-win.

2.Demonstrate your skills and knowledge with expert content

Your content strategy matters when it comes to building a trustworthy brand. Creating different types of content that demonstrate your expertise in your field is a great way to show you’re reliable enough to deliver on your promises.

There are lots of ways you can prove you have the skills and knowledge to position you as an expert in your field:

• Display and explain your qualifications in a blog post
• Create an ‘about us’ page that outlines your journey
• Make videos providing expert advice on a popular topic
• Post infographics that streamline a complicated process

Generating expert content will show your audience that you are a leader in the industry and you have the ability to address the needs and questions of your audience.

For example, Gina Corena & Associates, a law firm that serves the greater Las Vegas area, knows that it needs to prove that their practice is the most trustworthy choice for potential clients.

So, to set them apart from their competitors, they have developed a strategy that demonstrates their company’s expertise in a user-friendly way.

On their car accident attorneys page, they have published a comprehensive guide that answers common questions about what to do after a car accident and clarifies what their practice does in a very clear and simple way. By offering this information to their visitors, Gina Corena & Associates prove they have the knowledge needed to represent their clients.

Another great example of a company using content to earn customer trust is Casper, an online mattress store. This brand has to prove that its product is strong enough to be purchased sight unseen. On the company’s ‘about us’ page, they use engaging images and captions to show that a team of experts created their product.

Casper demonstrates that their team cares about product innovation and customers’ quality of sleep, which shows that their mattresses have been created by a company that knows their industry well.

3.Show off your positive reviews from past customers

If you are looking for a great way to build trust, look no further than the words of your past clients. Online customer reviews will improve your business by a large margin.

Providing positive customer reviews of your products or services will demonstrate that your products have been tested and approved by people just like your potential customers.

Consider displaying positive customer reviews on your landing pages, beneath specific products, or in a section of your website dedicated to customer feedback.

It doesn’t matter if you use star reviews, written testimonials, or a combination of the two. Showing potential buyers that your products are credible is crucial to building trust.

Here are some ways you can collect and display reviews to make them accessible.

Fabletics, an activewear company, helps to make browsing and comparing their activewear an easy process on their category pages. As you can see, the site displays star ratings directly below their product photos. This information helps potential customers compare different products and helps interested buyers through the customer journey.

These simple graphics allow customers to scroll through the different products and identify which ones have been positively received by other customers.

On the other hand, mHelpDesk, an automated field service software provider, uses video testimonials on a dedicated customer review page. They have provided an interactive video feed with text descriptions to highlight positive testimonials from real-life clients.

This is an excellent approach because, unlike text reviews, videos allow users to gauge body language and facial expressions as the customer describes their experience with the software. The testimonials automatically appear more authentic and relatable as a result.

You could also create a dedicated space for a variety of customer reviews.

All businesses can benefit from making their reviews sortable, too. Allow users to filter ratings by star count, location, or even customer demographics, like size and body type, to allow them to find the reviews that speak directly to their needs.

4.Build a strong connection by humanizing your business

If people can put faces to your business, they will feel far more connected to it and, therefore, be more likely to make a purchase.

Written copy is great, but nothing beats some engaging visuals that let customers take a peek at how your business works. Employee photos, different types of videos, and other “behind the scenes” content can go a long way towards humanizing your company.

Here are just some ways you can enhance your content to help customers connect with your brand.

• Incorporate some humor: Consider using memes, short-form videos, and humorous cartoons in your posts. Make sure the humor is clean and matches your company message.
• Use high-quality photos and videos: Build trust by using high-quality cameras to take your product images and videos. You could also enlist a professional editor to create a video that introduces you and your team to customers.
• Post original photos: Make sure your social media pages are populated with more than just product stills. Post team member pictures with short bios to connect with customers, for example.

SchoolLockers.com, a company that sells lockers and locker accessories, knows that they need to connect with their audience to build trust and sell their products. So, their homepage features a video that includes employee interviews, real-time factory footage, and anecdotes from satisfied customers.

This video helps to show the faces behind the brand and shows that employees take pride in their company and its products. The professional editing gives the video credibility and invites the viewer to watch it all the way through, too.

Post content on your website that shows your audience the people behind your brand. Take the time to highlight aspects of your business and have some fun with it. Your customers will see the positivity behind your company and rush to become a part of your story.

5.Make sure your company values are clear

It’s no secret that company culture is more important than ever. Customers are more likely to trust businesses whose values align with their own. So you should look for ways to show off your business’s values and how you incorporate them into the way you work.

Here are a few ways you can build a strong company culture that empowers your employees and inspires your customers:

• Start your own charity initiative to donate a certain percentage of your profits to a cause you care about
• Publish content around worthy causes or your fundamental values
• Highlight any ways you strive to be more environmentally friendly
• Discuss volunteer work you and your team do in your community

Wanderer Bracelets, a customized accessories retailer, uses extensive content on its website to show how their company grew from its experiences and values. Using storytelling and engaging imagery, the brand outlines how a wrong turn in Bali led to an opportunity to build a business that benefits local artisans and the environment.

Customers are drawn in by the engaging story and develop trust in the brand based on how well their ideals match the company’s.

Another great example is from Shop, an app powered by Shopify. By using this app, customers can reduce the carbon footprint made by their online deliveries. For every purchase made through the app, the brand will plant a tree.

The company set a goal of planting 4.2 million trees by 2022 with the help of like-minded shoppers. By designing their product around core environmental values, Shop builds trust and draws in their target audience, and this makes a connection deeper than just a simple online transaction.

Be upfront with your values and brand mission statement. Create and post content, like blog posts and videos, that outline your company values.

Share your charity initiatives and set goals that customers can help you reach by making a purchase with you. Your target audience will grow to trust you when they realize you stand for the same causes as them.

Summary

Building trust with potential customers is a critical component of your online success. Without it, you risk losing sales and conversions to your competitors.

Using these simple techniques, you can prove that your business, website, and products are trustworthy.

Looking for more ways to grow your business? Check out more of the articles in Tweak Your Biz’s business section. From driving sales to intelligent website design, they have up-to-date information that will help you take your company in the right direction.