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Web Marketing Tip: Use your website to build your credibility

Added on Tuesday 25 Mar 2008

One of the main aims of your website should be to build trust and establish your credibility in the minds of your visitors. Very few people will buy into your service or purchase your products if you they are unsure if they can trust you.

In a 2004 study, Center for the Digital future unearthed the following statistics.

• Established media - are trusted by 74%
• Government websites - are trusted by 73%
• Individual websites - are trusted by 9%.

If you are not an established brand, or running a government website - you have a job to do to establish yourself as a credible source of the service or product you are offering.

Maria Veloso author of, 'Web Copy That Sells', says it succinctly:

"On the web, people buy from people they like and trust'

One route to establishing trust is to aim to build a long-term relationship with your potential customers/clients.

To do that you have to keep in touch with them. For example, you could use your website to capture visitors email addresses - so you can build a long-term relationship via a newsletter or tips sheet.

Gerry McGovern, author of Killer Web Content writes,

"Most of my clients spend and average of 12 months as subscribers to my newsletter before they make an initial contact"

"85% of my business results from subscribers to my newsletter"

If you already have a mailing list that you use to send out a newsletter, revisit your website and check whether you are guiding visitors directly to your signup or contact form - rather than concentration solely on selling your product or service.

If you don't already have systems in place to capture customers contact details - you'd better put that right straight away - because your future may depend on it.

What I'm reading

At the moment I'm reading 'The Luck Factor' by Richard Wiseman. This is a book that I would recommend to everyone - because I don't know anyone who doesn't want to have more luck. I'm a sucker for self help books - even if they do all basically say the same thing (that's for another time) - but this isn't an airy-fairy think positive and you will get what you want book. It purports to be,

'a scientifically proven way to understand, control and increase your luck'.

Yes - that's right - a scientifically proven method for being lucky! Heavens above - that doesn't sound right at all.

Through a series of experiments Professor Richard Wiseman shows what it is that makes some people lucky and others unlucky. And he does this in an entertaining and amusing way. As a former magician - and member of the London Magic Circle - he knows how to keep your attention and entertained while at the same time putting across his message.

If you want to find out how to be lucky in your personal and business life I recommend you buy this book.

What has Jim Byrne been working on lately?

Recently completed work includes:

Womens History Scotland Website

The website promotes study and research into the history of women working in Scotland or working on Scottish themes.

The brief was to keep the navigation and layout as simple and uncluttered as possible, while still providing access to a wide range of information and resources (nothing new there).

A notable feature of the site is the database of biographies of Scottish women relevant to the history curriculum in Scottish schools. This has been developed to make it easy to add to and modify entries in the future.

The biographies had to be created in line with Learning and Teaching Scotland's requirements. As they have an application on their website that links into the individual entries.

Features of the new site include:

• A way to upload the new editions of the Scottish Womens History newsletter.
• A page to display forthcoming events.
• The use of the accessible content management system QnECMS so that members of Scottish Womens history group could manage the websites themselves.