Website best practices

Customers buy from you as much as they trust you. Even though we are talking about transactional purchases like buying a chocolate bar in a supermarket. Even to perform such a simple action, a customer to some extent trusts this brand, company and manufacturer. Working on trust is of high importance nowadays, this is not a one-time action, this is a constant process integrated in your digital marketing strategy. Let’s today talk about triggers of trust for your website – some aspects that will build trust to your business, no matter how big or small it is and what niche do you operate in.

Trust triggers for a website

1. Client’s reviews. Client reviews is a marketing classic. Online class help reviews is an example of using this tool. It is a good step to place links, it also could be something like a letter of gratitude from a client. However, the best variant is clients’ video reviews. Even recorded on a mobile phone are better than their absence.
2. High-quality photos of your products. Not taken from stocks or anywhere from the internet. Photos are not expected to be “professional”, just good photos: unique, good-quality, made on your own.
3. Panoramic photo. For some niches: in case your product is something very large, for example, industrial equipment or cargo vehicles, it is a constructive step to make and add panoramic photos to your website. If you sell cars, vehicles, equipment, make and upload their 3D model. Or at least panoramic view of the place where you sell your goods. This works very good in real estate also. By the way, there is already a successful startup in America that lets users to make a virtual model of apartments they sell and potential buyers can browse these panoramic views in VR and then take a decision to buy this or that apartment.  
4. Photos of the members of your team. This simple aspect adds trust to your brand. Surely, not all your clients are interested in your colleagues, however there are people who find it interesting and important. Existence of photos of your team members together with a description of their role in the company and maybe some personal facts about them, like, “has a dog” or “works as a volunteer” is a plus. A very good idea is to describe the person, explain his/her responsibilities, and even place their contacts. Recording and publishing videos instead of photos is also a plus. And placing contacts of executives or top-managers is a big plus, a potential client sees the availability of decision makers and trusts the company.
5. Photos of production area. Or video. It helps the audience to understand where your product is born. It is like you say to your clients: “look, here is our comprehensive production process, our product is not just appears at once, we produce it her using this equipment…”. Works very good for manufacturing companies.
6. Overall refuse to use free stock photos on your website. Photos made on your own even less professionally, gain more trust than stock photos. 
7. Description of the work process. The task here is to show the process as well as to lead the client through the process. Step-by step description of what you will do to solve the problem of the client.  
8. Using logos of your clients. This method has already become so popular that becomes to irritate, so the solution here is to show 3-4 logo of your most important clients on the main page, placing logos of others on the page with case studies. 
9. Letter of gratitude. Such letter is extremely hard to get actually, however this is worth doing. Placing a scan of a letter of gratitude is a good analogue of a client’s video review. If your business is offline, you can provide your clients with a special book and ask them to leave a written gratitude or review. Further, you can scan these written reviews and post on your website, which will gain to trust from potential clients to your business.
10. Certificates. In case your product or services needs some certificates, licenses, permits, do not forget to publish them. 
11. Awards. In case your business has earned a reward or has been listed in some rating, show this to your audience. It is necessary to talk about it, demonstrating to your audience that your business has been noted by any independent listing/rating organization and placed you among the best in the industry. 
12. Links to your social networks. Make sure your profiles in socials are live, and you post something at least once in 2 days. Some clients check socials of a brand and glad to see you post something interesting today or at least yesterday. Remove links from your website if you don’t do SMM – empty profiles in socials make your potential clients think that the company is closed. The same situation with the section “News” on your websites – make sure it is constantly updated with posts, don’t leave it empty of with the last post published a year ago. 
13. Possibility to write to a CEO directly. Very good and constructive step to gain trust. Provides your company with the chance that a dissatisfied customer will use this form to solve an issue instead of placing a negative review on reviews’ aggregators. Possibility to address to CEO directly is a must.
14. Video about the company. Be it a simple introductory speech of a CEO and managers recorded on a cell phone, animated infographics about history of the company or a 10 minutes’ promo film. But don’t forget that users like short 1-2 minutes’ videos more than 10-minutes’ ones. 
15. Your publications in offline magazines or industry-specific websites. This demonstrates that experts of your company are recognized by other platforms, media and, as a result, adds trust to your business. 
16. Participation in TV shows and programs. The same as the previous point.
17. Welcoming words instead of standard phone beeps when a person calls to your company. Even though this trigger of trust is not connected to website, today this is a must. for any business.
18. Online consultant on a website. This shows that website is live, and there are people who are online right now and ready to answer clients’ questions. Very important trust trigger. Same with messengers. Make also sure your existing of prospective customers can get a reply in a minute in a chat. 
19. Company results in numbers. Something like “3.6 million transactions made in our service“, “39 000 food deliveries made last year”, “93% of satisfied customers” and so on. Something interesting to a potential customer with a focus on your services expressed in numbers.
20. Place company details on your website. 
21. Guarantees and warranty. Simply, let your customers know that you provide them with the long warranty period and ready to exchange the product if something goes wrong with it. Money-back guarantee in case a client doesn’t like your online course, for example, also a good aspect to raise trust. Knowing your guarantees, knowing he/she will not lose anything if he/she buys and decides to return the purchase benefits to gaining trust and encourages shopping.
22. Return policies, terms of exchange and return of goods information, published on a website. 
23. Privacy policy and personal data processing rules. It is very important today to let your customers know that their data is secured, you protect it, and do not transfer data to any 3rd party.  
24. Contact details. Email(s), phone numbers, messengers, office address, location map – place as many details as possible. Contact page with a plenty of contacts shows a visitor that the company is live and improves trust.
25. In addition to the previous point, a photo instruction “how to get to the office”. Demonstrates your care of client.
26. Publish drafts of agreements on a website. Potential clients can download and look through them.
27. Corporate blog, where you publish news about your company development, articles and so on. A good example we can mention here is a Dodo Pizza – huge international network of pizza restaurants founded in Russia. Its founder has been keeping a blog where he shared news, his plans, reports etc. Even though DodoPizza is not very delicious, however it is interesting to read about their business and their approach to customer experience improvement.
28. News about further development of the product. This is vital for software developers mainly. A simple example here is a CRM development company that posts articles about new updates and explains what features were added, what was improved and so on.Master level of this point: to share not only the results, but also development plans. Let your customers know what you are planning to do, what features to add. And maybe even to participate in the discussion of your plans, giving you valuable feedback.
29. Links to platforms where clients discuss your product. Creating a forum and maintaining it is a good sign for customers showing expertise of your company. Forums of gamers led by Ubisoft Entertainment, Activision and other gamedev companies are perfect examples. Surely, today is the era of social networks, so think of creating a community in any social platform that is popular in your region. Even though you are not a large corporation, think of creation some industry specific forum or group in socials, no matter what your niche is.
30. “Careers” section. If visitors see that your company hires – this is the evidence that you are growing and developing.
31. Cases. The best marketing tool probably. “The company A addressed to us with the problem B, and we offered a solution C. The results are E and F.” A very powerful trust trigger. No matter you work in B2C or B2B. Your potential client might read it and find that he has the same pain.. Cases can also be made as videos.
32. A website page or blog post with a lot of comments and shares in socials. Users see that the question is vital and is interesting for the audience.
33. FAQ – Frequently asked questions – section on the website. By the way, you can also place a question(s) that potential clients will probably do not ask because they are not specialists in the niche and answer to it. In such a way you can mention some interesting information about your product or service unobtrusively, emphasizing its uniqueness.
34. About the company section on the website. Classic issue, just general information, when the company was found, history, mission, goals etc.
35. Participation in an industry association. Nothing special, just mentioning your membership in an industry association in your city, region or country. Visitors know that most likely a company has to meet some requirements to be a member of an association, so this is one more trust trigger.
36. Making and publishing a research or reports. The aspect is to create any research connected to your industry and publish it. Clients will positively perceive the fact that you do market research.
37. Participation in exhibitions and conferences. Both these aspects show that if your company takes part in such events, then you are experts and worth trusting.
38. Company’s education center. Let’s imagine you offer remote accounting services. Try to offer fast online educational courses for accounting. Here how many niches there are, as many educational courses you can offer. By the way, this can be successfully combined with the point 30 – building a forum around your product.
39. Records of your specialists performing on conferences, holding webinars.
40. One more trigger is a possibility to download a PDF catalog of your products. 
41. Presentation of your company in PDF. A potential client can download it and show to his/her boss. By the way, not all CEOs and top-managers like to browse websites. PDF presentation(s) is for them.
42. Detailed instruction how to use your product. Text or video. Or both. Something like “To use our software product do this, this and this.” Clients will be of the opinion that if it is written and described, this should work.
43.  Publish your financial reports for some period. Such transparency works well for earning trust.
44. If you are a large manufacturer, publish a list of dealers and their contact details on your website.
45. A list of all your departments’ locations. Works well if you are, for example, a restaurant network and have restaurants in several cities. Publish the list wherever possible starting from a website – if a client has visited you once and liked services, he/she will probably try to remember addresses of other restaurants just in case.
46. Sponsorship and charity. We suppose everything is clear.

That’s all for today. We sincerely hope that you find this list useful. If you need a professional website, address to us for a consultation. Please pay attention that the mentioned points not also improve trust to your brand, these small aspects also make your website SEO ranking better and improve customer experience you offer to your clients.