Updated March 3, 2025
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Trust Me I’m a Marketer
Getting trust online is difficult. With so many options for a customer it’s easy to lose customers for small reasons, so even the slightest reason to doubt your website’s trustworthiness can lead to you losing customers. So to make sure your building trust online properly make sure you’re following these simple steps.
External Proof
Another good way to gain trust on your site is by using external trust indicators. For example, at Spectrum, we are proud to be Google Partners. Having the Google Partners badge on our website shows that we have the approval of one of the largest technology companies around. Other good social proof can be reviews, or customer testimonials, logos from clients you have worked with or awards your business has won.
Dot Com
Just like getting a work-related email from a @gmail.com email address, trying to run a business from anything other than a .com address will immediately make the user question your site. In some areas of the tech world, .io and .co are acceptable, but for the majority of businesses in the US, we would suggest you have a .com domain.
Slow Loading Times
Slow loading indicates an old and poorly maintained website. Much like a .com is a sign that the company is serious and has purchased a .com domain, a website that loads quickly also shows that this business is putting money into their online presence, and is taking care of their website.
No Security
Not having SSL won’t just hurt your SEO, it can also turn customers away. Chrome users, in particular, can easily see if a website has the “trust” icon in their search bar, indicating if a website is secure or not. Setting up SSL is not hard, or expensive, so there really isn’t any excuse not to do it!
No Recent Posts
A well maintained, regularly updated blog and social media platforms are other trust indicators. If a customer comes to your site and sees that the blog was last updated in 2014 they may think your company is dormant. The same goes for social media platforms. While ideally, you should be publishing multiple times a week, if you can’t manage that find something that works for you. But try to regularly update both your blog and social media platforms.
Get Trust Online in Five Steps
If you follow these five steps you should be on your way towards having a trustworthy, respected website. What else do you think you need to gain a customers’ trust in 2018? We’d love to hear what you do.
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