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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
Ninja business coach Matt Burkinshaw of Synergy Business Coaching joined me on a teleconference call to share his breakthrough business development strategies with our tribe. Those in attendance walked away with proven ideas they could immediately put to use in their business. If you couldn’t join the call live, the seminar audio transcript is below for online listening or to download to your iPod.
Smart phones are those do-everything little mobile phone devices you see people mysteriously hovering over while typing away with their thumbs; like I am doing now as I compose this blog post while waiting for my meal to arrive at a favorite restaurant (
