How To İmprove Credibility Of Your Content?
Do you often doubt the offers or the freebies that come along with your favorite brands?When making payments, do you doubt whether your money is safe? Your accounts details are safe?
It is the most common worry that we all face despite being very active in the digital world. We look for reinforcement to feel safe, confidently make payments, buy products or to choose a plan or a service. It is not easy to trust and make decisions on the internet, hence it is important for brands to take an extra effort to make the customers feel safe about their money, personal information or their decision on the digital world.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” — Warren Buffett
Have you ever evaluated your website/communication platforms to check if if you have included credibility features to reinforce trust in your customers. if not, here are some key indicators to cross verify your credibility scores. Take cues from these well studied, widely used, research based techniques to improve your credibility scores. It is never late to embark on the journey of trust building for brands.
1. Showcase Expertise/Authority
One sure way of building trust is through authority/expertise. Show your expertise in your field through blogs, stories, photos, videos. Talk about the impact your brand has created for your customers. Help your customers stay on top of the trends through quality content that guides them, gives them insights about the future. Your content should help your customer stay relevant in the market. Quality content plays a key role in establishing credibility. So what are are your plans for creating expert content?
2. Intuitive User Experience
How you make your users feel while they are on your site is a key dimension in building trust. Make sure your design is intuitive, simple and accessible to all the users. Make your forms (input forms)simple, easy to fill, provide auto suggestion to ease the workload. Provide your contact information upfront, display details of office location with actual photos of people. Make your website look, read and function professionally and keep the content up to date. Never take design for granted while you aim to build trust. When was the last time your site was updated?
3. Showcase Awards and Recognition
Showcase your achievements, awards, and recognition to help build credibility. They are the indicators of your quality work/service.They help to establish your leadership in your domain and they speak for your work. If your brand has been covered in media, showcase that news on the website to build trust. Have you made use of awards, recognition, press coverage?
4. Show People behind the organisation
What makes an organisation trustworthy? It is the people behind the company/brand that help build trust. Showcase your people generously whether it is HR, leadership,employees, all teams can be used to build trust. It is important to show that there are real people behind your company/brand to make an emotional connect and add credibility. Do you have a list of brand ambassadors for your brand?
5. Include Testimonials/reviews
When you are customers are speaking for you, it is more easy for customers to believe the opinion than a brand speaking for itself. Testimonials are the most common credibility mark used across brands and services. Add customer testimonials that include a photo and a quote. It is good to showcase verified customer reviews as it validates your customer opinions and reinforces they are for real and not fake/bought. Be true to add both positive and negative reviews, in case of negative/bad feedback, be responsible to answer it, resolve it on a timely basis. Are you making use of client success stories/customer success stories?
6. Display Security badges
A security badge is a symbol placed on your website that ensures your visitors that the page is legitimate and all their data collected is secure. Ensure you use these badges to indicate your site’s content is credible and genuine. Make use of recommendations, citations to build trust.
7. Show Clear Terms and Conditions
Make sure your terms and conditions are written in a simple way using plain language. The conditions are crisp and clear to users and if any clauses are associated with your terms and conditions, make it easy for users to know. For example, do not hide deliver charges, service charges, etc. to establish trust. No matter what policy/service/product you are dealing with, make your terms and conditions clear to users and provide explanations if you need to charge extra to the users. Transparency is valued high in building trust for brands. Time to be bold and open.
8. Be Present on Social Media
If a brand is active on social media, it means they are connected to customers and for real, there is a company. It helps customers to believe in a brand that is on social media, which is making an effort to answer the customer queries, help the customers navigate buying, decision making process. Customers check for a brand’s social presence before trusting it and making a purchase. Do not neglect the power of being active on social media. Turn your social side on and make the most of it by being active and reciprocating with customers who are in need.
Every business is based on trust and you need to pay at most attention to build trust in your business to succeed and stay head. Make use of these credibility markers and reap the benefits.
