Why online trust is everything

Getting a potential customer or client to trust you is the most important factor in your online success. The evidence is clear and has been for many decades. People buy from people they like and trust. The challenge, however, has always been how to get people to trust you and your brand. It is no easy task but there are a few ground rules that always seem to hold up.

• Trust is no longer given automatically but must be hard earned over an extended period of time. Advertising and marketing over time develops brand awareness and name recognition. Name recognition begins to develop trust as people come to know you and your company better. One of the best ways to develop trust is through engaging content. For this to be compelling and engaging, your content needs to establish authority by conveying to the reader that you are an expert at what you do. In addition, it must educate and add value to the reader’s life as well as leave the reader with a distinct feeling that the author is someone who can be trusted with regard to this particular area of expertise.
• The key to writing engaging content is to give people something that will solve a problem for them or improve their lives. They will find this content considering much of the content out there is inane drivel (think Facebook posts) most of the time. In addition, Google tends to favor longer content especially if it is in an effort to establish authority and trust. The longer articles tend to be read more than the shorter ones and they tend to rank higher on SERP’s.
• Before you can venture out into content creation, you must know what your niche is, who the audience for it is, and where that audience tends to be. Another huge advantage to your content creation is to know your industry and your niche enough to know what some of the most read content is. What is already out there and being read? Once you can put together all of the various aspects of establishing yourself as an expert and someone to be trusted, then you an begin to put together a long range plan that will significantly drive traffic and increase your rankings over time.

-Written by Kevin Sawyer