Trust me - I have a website
Posted by MattE on 28 Jun 2006 at 03:58 pm | Tagged as: Marketing, Web
I have just finished doing a free website review for a private detective business’s website.
One of the things that really struck me was the inadvertent overlooking of the element of trust. Every website needs to establish trust - it is no different to any other sales process - rapport and trust.
In the case of this business, people are often emotionally charged, and you need to know that the business you retain to undertake an investigation is going to be trustworthy. Not that they are going to take your money and run, but more a case of you have to have trust in them to understand your needs, trust them to be competent and reliable, trust them to be discreet.
How is trust developed? There are several ways:
Testimonials - these are very powerful. Depending on the situation, the person needs to be identifiable.
Case studies - help to show that the business has dealt with your type of request before.
Contact pages - there needs to be some carefully crafted language that helps people through the process, giving them options and no commitment till they are ready.
Guarantees - these can be subject to abuse, buy money-back guarantees can be viable and worthwhile.
Site design and colours - a well-designed site is important. It must not look too home made, but a something too professional can backfire as well. A happy medium always wins.
Real time contact - have a phone number displayed, and if applicable, even a street address.
We are real - I know most of us don’t like it, but a photo of a real person adds an important human touch. We have even supplied caricatures to a business who did not want their staff 100% ‘identifiable’.
We won’t kiss and tell - a strong privacy policy is a must.
There are others, but in the main these are the most important. You are invited to submit your extra ones via comments.
The bottom line is people don’t know if your website is run by a 12 year old or a 30 year old, honest or not, or in fact it could even be run by a dog 
Technorati tags - internet business | web trust
