Trust is never directly proportional to the calls-to-action on your website, or the engaging content, or the faster page load times. If visitors have a doubt about your business website being trustworthy, you will experience bounce rates and you will never actually figure out what’s wrong until you look at elements that matter when it comes to trust.

But before we go into those elements, it is important to find out why trust matters? Customers can just buy things from you or just visit your website and interact – trust or no trust, right? The fact of the matter is that today, before we go about selling a product, service or any kind of consultancy, we need to develop that relationship, a bond with the customers. Doing so helps the customers to believe that we understand their need and abide by it, just like any other relationship.

Apart from that, there have also been too many exploitative tactics over a longer period of time that people have their guard up when it comes to marketing or sales. In order to get inside their heads and act like a solution provider, we need to fight that feeling off with trust.

Coming back to where we left off, how do you build trust via a website? Here are some tweaks that you can do to your website to make it more trustworthy.

• Real people, real images

Stock photos are found everywhere. There’s nothing wrong with them, absolutely not but they are just too overwhelmingly used everywhere around the Internet. If you need to stand out to be different than either hire a photographer to take real pictures of your team, workplace, surroundings, products, etc. Real situations reflect the real you behind the scene, hence, they give off a trustworthy image.

So hiring a photographer could be expensive, sure, but so is getting stock photos. There are many freelance photographers who do the job for very little or no money at times. They do it to enrich their portfolio as part of their school assignment or just to create a collection of brands to help them get recognition. Leverage the possibility if you are a small business and expense is your number one concern. Just ensure the final images are high quality images to maximize your visual authenticity.

• Testimonials for social proof

Social proof is one of the strongest element that helps in building trustworthy websites. This is why you should be reaching out to your clients once you have delivered them your services and ask them to send a feedback that can be posted on your website.

You may also include a photo of the person as it will add more authenticity to the testimonial as you put a face to the person’s name. It makes the whole thing more visually compelling. You can also go a step further and record a video of your client’s testimonial or perhaps add a case study of the whole problem and how you provided solution for it.

• Media logos for social proof

Although the age is such that there is a blurred line in between journalism and sponsored promotions, but there’s always that spark in earning mentions in a reputable magazine or an online paper. For instance, if the Gulf News has found your brand to be noteworthy enough to actually mention it in one of their posts, that sure is a moment of pride that you would want the world to know about.

A mention in such publications and channels has a driving power that influences your audience to just believe in your authenticity. In order to be able to do that, you can’t just sit and wait until someone gets in touch with you about sharing your story, or write a case study on your success endeavors. You need to connect with the influencers at conferences, workshops and other similar opportunities to earn mentions. When you do, don’t forget to place it on your website to let your visitors see for themselves what you’re capable of.

• Client and partner logos for social proof

Social proof is of utmost importance; we all are clear on that. But there are other opportunities that lie beyond the media logos and testimonials. When you work with clients and partners, place their logos on your website to present them as your allies. Although reputable and well-known brands will immediately come into notice but even the smaller ones can be impactful.

Consider this an indirect way of persuading the visitors or prospects that sinc
e you have been good to the clients and partners that you have mentioned; you are also good enough to work with them. This will go a long way in convincing those prospects.

• Disclaimers to set the right expectations

Fear of the unknown is a real killer of trust. To ensure that your visitors don’t fall into that trap, just be clear about what each CTA button, tab or link on your website will lead to. Also, make your navigation label intuitive and pristine. Say no to clutters.

Quick disclaimers, labels and buttons are real handy in this regard. You can inform the prospects exactly what they should expect from you or how often will they hear from you or that their contact information is safe with you. But this is not the end of it. The button should really take the visitors where it says it should and upon choosing email list, you should be contacting the prospects as often as you mentioned. That’s the real catch: Fulfilling your promise is a major step towards building trust.

• Wrap your stories around your audience

When writing content, using the word “You” makes a whole lot of difference than referring to just nobody as you write. It helps in disarming people as they become more receptive to the message you are trying to send them.

Another way of making your audience flatter is to talk more about “Them” and less about your company. Inform them how you plan to deliver solutions to them and how they can be helpful in making your customers’ life easier. Include them proactively in a conversational manner and speak directly to them.

• Conclusion

Today, building credibility is everything. Visitors have a dire need to feel safe as they engage with a website or a brand. If you build your brand presence upon the elements mentioned above, your overall website design will prove to be more effective and trustworthy.