5 Ways to Build Customer Trust for Small Businesses

When potential customer lands on your website, what impression do they build of your business? In all likelihood, they are judging everything they see before they decide to say a ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ to transacting with you.

The brick-and-mortar stores have the advantage of establishing a human connect with customers, thereby leading to successful trust-based selling. What is the equivalent of that in online businesses? Most of the small business owners don’t know the answer. In this post, we will explore 5 things that every small business must do to establish a relationship of trust with their customers right from the start:

1) Domain Name

Your online address is your first touch point for new customers. Is your domain name impressive? Is it memorable? Make sure you choose a domain name that positions you as an innovative and futuristic business. Keep it short and make it meaningful.

Compare www.info.tech to www.infotech-solutions.com — you will find the first one more appealing and impressive. So will your customers!

2) Branded Email

A smart domain name for your business goes a long way in making your website seem professional. What you can do further to impress your customers is to get branded email addresses for yourself. It’s the easiest and most effective way to establish trust with your customers.

60% of young businesses saw an increase in customer engagement; 42% saw an increase in sales after switching to a professional email address. (See report by Google here. )

3) SSL Certificate

You have probably heard of SSL without knowing what it exactly stands for. SSL means ‘secure sockets layer’ which makes the website more secure for handling sensitive information and personal details of customers. All sites that require customers to share their credit card details should have an SSL certificate to ensure privacy and security to the information.

An SSL certificate comes at a price and that contributes to the credibility of your business. If you bothered to invest in an SSL certificate to add a layer of security, you sure are serious about what you do. So, get an SSL certificate, especially if you are hoping for customers to transact on your website.

4) SEO

Nothing’s more trustworthy than showing up in an organic search result. It only validates that your content is original, rich and credible. SEO is an ongoing process and the results only get better with time, so keep at it. If your website is Wordpress based, use tools such as Yoast for your pages and posts. You should also do a keyword search before you draft any new content for your website (or blog). It will all help you keep your SEO rank high and your trust quotient higher!

5) Active social media presence

Your customers need to know that you are in action. Nothing puts off your customer’s confidence in you more than dead social media pages that have not been updated in months. It makes them feel that either you are not in business any more or that your business is not doing well enough for you to bother about any updates or promos.

It’s a good practice to reserve social media pages with your brand name on most popular social media platforms to avoid brandjacking. However, if you genuinely don’t have resources (or time) to manage those pages, just don’t put the links on your website. Be active on one of the platforms that you understand well and find easier to manage. Update it at least once a week so that there’s always a recent post for customers to know that you are active. Same goes for your brand’s blog. If you think you won’t be able to put out content regularly, just don’t have a blog at all or else update it as often as you can!

These simple-to-execute actions will help you position your business as a professional entity that is serious about doing business online. Building trust with customers is key to long-term success in any business hence it’s important to give it the time and effort it deserves.