Convert Clicks to Sales: Earn Your Customer's Trust Online

There are many things you can do online to improve your sales and profits for your online business, including good branding, good website design and ease of use, good content, good promotion, and the like, but the single most important thing to converting clicks to sales is found in one word: TRUST.

You simply must earn your customer's trust. There's no other way around it.

How many of us have ever gone to a website but read their privacy policy and decided to leave the site? Or perhaps you've gone to a website that looked small-time, didn't have a lot of history, the copy was bad, or the server for payment wasn't secure - and instead of following a purchase through, the consumer just clicks off site.

With the vast internet, many websites are a dime a dozen, in that if a consumer doesn't like the look or feel of a site, they can probably find another similar site pretty easily. For this reason, it's important that your site be more trustworthy to the consumer than a competitor's site. Even if you offer a unique product that cannot be found anywhere else on the internet, if you can't gain your potential customer's trust, you won't make the sale.

The way to ensure trust for your online business is to do a good job at the items mentioned above. Let's look at a few of them.

Branding to Earn Customer Trust

This concept is basically referring to how you put your product and company name out there, exhibiting that your business is an expert in the industry, knowledgeable about the products and services your company provides, and establishing your company's name as an industry leader in the area your company specializes.

One way to do that is to offer free information, content articles about your website or business's product on other websites, and good content and information on your own website. You can earn your customer's trust if they see you know what you're talking about, feel passionate about the quality of the product or service you provide, and aren't JUST trying to make a sale.

Website Design to Earn Customer Trust

Have you ever gone to a website that you heard people talking about and when you got there, it was plain, simplistic, or did not function properly? If you're trying to sell something to your customer through the internet, your website is usually the first or second point of contact for that customer. If your website design is poor, looks cheap, is hard to navigate or understand, or doesn't function properly, chances are you won't earn your customer's trust enough to convert that click to a sale, no matter how good your product or service may be. If you want to earn your customer's trust online, make your web presence and web design dynamic, attractive, easy to use and understand, and secure.

Content and Information to Earn Customer Trust

Providing your customer with content that informs, such as consumer product reviews, testimonials, and the like, will help earn the consumer's trust. Additionally, having a secure website that uses one of the major online payment processors, such as PayPal or another such company where the consumer doesn't have to directly give YOU or your company their credit card or account information can help build trust.

For some consumers, being a member of the Better Business Bureau or the local Chamber of Commerce may help increase your customer trust. Verified membership in trustworthy organizations and using those banners or insignias on your website can also help earn your customer's trust and convert clicks into sales.

Communication and Privacy to Earn Customer Trust

Provide a privacy policy on your website that your customers can see that is honest, simple, and easy to understand. Let you customer know up front what information you will collect during a transaction and how that information will be used. If you assure your customer that you will not sell or give their email addresses to third parties, chances are you will earn more trust and convert additional sales.

By the same token, you should have a means to contact you, both via a webform and an email address, but providing a phone number will exponentially improve turnover. Customers don't want to do business with a website where, if the sale goes bad for any reason, they are completely unable to contact the company.

An email address helps, but a phone number is the best motivation. Likely, most customers will not use that phone number unless there is a problem, but knowing they have a number can help earn customer trust. Additionally, if the customer sees a product they like, but you have failed to provide information they would like to know, sometimes the ability to take a quick phone call or answer a quick question in an email can satisfy your customer, earn their trust, and convert the sale.

Providing good branding, attractive and easy to use website design, good communication and assurance of privacy, will help your online business earn trust with the consumer and you should see an increase in sales.