One of the things that people who buy things online now do more often than not, is look for signs of a scam when they’re thinking about buying something. They may look at your sales page with skepticism; they may even look you up to see what people say about you.
Here are some tips for building trust online in order to add credibility to your online marketing efforts. If people trust you, they’re more likely to give you a chance.
Build Authority
How do you appear more credible? Build authority in multiple places. Write content, submit helpful guest posts to authority blogs in your niche, give away a free report that helps you establish yourself as knowledgeable and professional.
You might even consider doing a YouTube video sales letter and a few online seminars. Not only can this add interactive elements to a sales page but you can connect as a person with your audience. For many, hearing your voice and seeing your face will add to your credibility and improve your online reputation.
Share Success Stories
If you’ve been in business for a little while, maybe you’ve received some great customer testimonials that you can share. If not, work to get them – even if you need to give away a few review copies of your product for free. By doing this, you can have testimonials for your website and some people may post their testimonials on other sites as well. They could link back to your site and mention you. They may even want to help you sell your product.
Sell Through Affiliates
If you have created a product and want help selling it, you can share commissions with affiliates who promote it for you. This is a great way to make passive income because you won’t have to do all the selling. And, others extolling the virtues of you and your product can’t hurt, either! People interested in buying your product will find plenty of others talking up the features and benefits of it!
Answer Objections
If people have questions that your website doesn’t answer, this may make the prospective buyer unsure of your product. Try to anticipate objections to buying and answer concerns in your web copy and / or a FAQ page. If your product is a good one, this will shine through.
Offer A Guarantee
Guaranteeing satisfaction is the best way to break the barriers of trust. When you eliminate risk by way of a money back guarantee, this helps you overcome the biggest objection of all, which is typically, “Will it work / Is this worth the cost?”
Building trust online takes time. Build relationships with your prospects, be transparent, and take your business and your reputation seriously and before you know it you could have better sales conversion rates than ever.
Have a most outstanding day.
Sean RasmussenAussie Internet Marketing
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008 - 2012
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Great tips for building trust online, Sean.
Your point about offering a Money Back Guarantee is a big one for me, especially when purchasing online. It gives the consumer plenty of confidence that the product lives up to expectations.
Meeting and exceeding customer expectations is also a important way to build trust, customers with a good experience, are your best sales people with word of mouth.
There are many people who simply will not purchase without a money back guarantee, and I don’t blame them. If the product is quality and does what it says it will do, there shouldn’t be too many issues with people wanting refunds anyway
yes i agree, the money back issue is huge, esp w/sites like ebay and trademe offering buyer protection now too, it is just expected even with buying someone else’s pocket lint on ebay! I am researching a consumer disputes resolution method to match the method used to resolve international domain name clashes in January because of this issue; too many times you don’t order because if it is from offshore, it is hard and expensive to get legislative cover on things like Consumer Guarantees Act and the like. The greatest plan to help aleviate that for buyers is choose product carefully that offers the guarantee themselves- excellent and finding these articles re-inspiring our action! Tx Sean.