Improving Your Company’s Online Credibility

A smile and a handshake may be enough to gain people’s trust in the real world. However, online you may have to resort to other methods of getting customers to trust you. Here are just a few ways in which you can present yourself as a credible business online.

Make sure your site is professionally designed

An amateurish site will lead customers believe that your business is also amateurish. There are lots of free website builders out there that can allow you to create your site without coding know-how – while these can be handy for saving money, you need to still have a good eye for design. Hiring a professional website developer could be a better option for ensuring that your site looks high-quality.

Offer a bio of who you are

A personal bio on your site – such as this bio of Frank DiTomasso – can help people to connect on a human level. It could be a chance to tell your story and show off your personal achievements. This bio could be on your homepage or on a separate part of your site.

Post photographs of you and your business

Photographs of you and your business can also show that you’re a legitimate business. Human faces can meanwhile help to build a connection. Just make sure that any photos you post online look professional. It could even be worth hiring a professional photographer to take some photos for your site.

Display award and certificate badges

If you’ve won any business awards, be sure to mention these on your site. The award company may create a badge for you that you can display on your site. Similarly, you may be able to do this with certificates that you have earnt to show that you are highly qualified.

Encourage positive reviews and testimonials

Modern consumers often like to check out reviews and testimonials of businesses to see how other customers found their service. You can build up positive reviews on sites like TrustPilot by encouraging happy customers to leave reviews. If you get negative reviews, try to respond to these courteously – most review sites allow you to publicly respond to negative reviews, which can allow you to apologise (or argue your case if you think they’re being unfair).

Grow your social media following

A large social media following will help to convince consumers that you are a well-established and successful business. Encourage customers, employees, suppliers, friends and family to like your pages. Don’t ever buy followers – not only is this disingenuous, but these will likely be follows from inactive accounts, so you won’t get any interaction from them.

Boost your search engine rankings

High search engine rankings can also show that you’re a popular and trusted business. The best way to boost your rankings is to hire the help of an SEO agency. Using keywords on your site and link building, these agencies can help you to climb the rankings (hopefully, ending up on page 1 of Google).