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So your website has all the bells and whistles but only a trickle of business seems to be coming from it.  If this sounds familiar chances are during the development phase you made the all too common mistake of placing too much emphasis on the way your site looks, its design. 20% of your website’s success is a function of design.  Building trust in the minds of your visitors makes up the other 80% of the success equation. Trust building is where you should be focusing the majority of your effort if you want your website to deliver a torrent of hot leads desperate to do business with you.

Ever heard the statement, “people do business with those they like and trust”? It just so happens to be the one firm truth in business and by adding a few trust-building assets, your website will be fulfilling your expectations in no time.

1. Great Content: Teaching (not hard pitching) sells and adding useful, free information that helps your customers make better use of your products and services positions you as the market authority inspiring trust in the process. Interview your best clients at your blog, write an eBook detailing product use strategies or prepare a downloadable list of 10 great tips for using your services in PDF format.
2. Newsletter: Prospects must see your (trust-building) messages multiple times before they take action and sending a monthly newsletter filled with helpful, useful content (not sales pitches) simplifies this task.
3. Free Q/A Conference Calls: Use virtual conference services like Free Conference Calls or DimDim to answer your prospects’ questions about creative ways to use the valuable services you offer. Use these service’s recording tools to create audio versions of your sessions and add the recordings to your site or blog to reach an even greater number of prospects.
4. Social Proof:  The principle of social proof teaches that humans are genetically wired to shortcut the decision making process, thus we naturally seek the opinions of others to help us choose the right product or provider.  Proper use of testimonials on your site adds the social proof your prospects need to take the desired action, contacting you.
5. Media hits: If you actively pitch story angles to the media about your company (if you don’t, start!) adding press mentions to your site provides a stamp of approval from an authoritative and “objective” source.

As long as your site’s design passes the professionalism smell test, every dollar you spend beyond this point is money wasted. Shifting your focus from flash and pop to trust building is the best way to turn your site into a customer generating machine.

Do You Still Think Looks Mean Everything?

Introducing your website visitors to helpful tools they can immediately put to use in their businesses and in their lives is a powerful way to build trust and liking in the minds of your prospects.  Just in case you didn’t know people do business with those they like and trust; so if you have adopted the strategy of offering useful content, the best way to accelerate your success is to show your prospects how to use the tools you uncover instead of simply pointing them out.

A quick break to make a point

Avoid the “now what” syndrome…

By stopping at simply identifying the resource you lose the game because anyone can do this and quite frankly you leave your prospects thinking, “That’s interesting, so now what?” For instance I can tell you that Feedly is a great gizmo for organizing the content from all of the blogs you read but if I walk you through the steps it takes to use Feedly to build strong alliances with influential people in your networks, this can have a bottom line impact on your business and is far more useful.

Always remain relevant…

Now replace that dead, lifeless page of resource links with a valuable blog or article database that teaches your site visitors to become master users of the resources you dig up. Finding resources, great….making them work for others, priceless.

How do you use resources on your site?

It is survivors law that if you are in business you need customers to buy but how you go about making this happen is the difference between a business that soars or sinks. Anyone who knows me understands that I live by the rule “you get what you give” and until you have made a meaningful investment in helping your prospects, you haven’t won the right to introduce your products or services. Thanks Mr. Rogers for the lesson.

The other day I started following someone on Twitter who from his status updates (Tweets) seemed like an interesting enough person; that is until he started sending me pitches for a service he recently launched.  That’s right not even a hello or how are you doing?

The strategy of help…

Up front if you live to serve, to help; you will be rich in relationships, trust, authority and not to mention restful sleep knowing that you are not viewed as the newest con-man on the scene. From a monetary standpoint the strategy is equally effective as reciprocity kicks in and those you helped really work hard to return the favor by offering referrals, service trades, helpful resources and purchases.

On your website…

Replace a few of those “buy now”, “order this immediately” and related pitches with free information that can help your customers and clients. A free ebook, educational article or tips sheet will serve as the necessary handshake giving you the right to make the ask.

The next time you get frustrated after receiving a bad report from your accountant, find a charity and donate your services. Its the cure for what ails you and your business.

Who is the last person you helped?

Let’s face it, showing up as Google’s top search result for a particular query and generating 10,000 clickthroughs to your site means nothing if those visitors don’t do anything after the initial click (register for your newsletter, contact you, request more information or purchase outright). What most people don’t realize is that your copy, those little words on the screen, are the most powerful tools you have to inspire your site visitors to take that oh so valuable final action. I am sorry to inform you it’s not your slick graphics, swirling flash animation or pop-up boxes that will convince your prospects to act. Your success online begins and ends with the quality of your copy.

In her book, Website Copy that Sells: The Revolutionary Formula for Creating Killer Copy Every Time veteran web copywriter Maria Veloso delivers on her promise to teach you the recipe for writing web copy that is sure to increase website visitor conversion.  The book rests on a single basic premise that good website writing mirrors that of direct response copy, the success formula being:

1. Immediately address your visitors WANTS with a strong introductory headline
2. Present the possibilities: what life would be like if buyers received your stated benefits
3. Introduce your solution
4. Entice with your offer
5. Reduce anxiety with testimonials
6. Close with a direct compelling request to take action

Additional meat is added to these bones with step-by-step instructional guides and excellent examples from Veloso’s copywriting experience.  The book is a must read for anyone looking for results online. I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.