How Can You Make Your Website More Credible? Easy & Quick Tips to Make Credible Website

The local business landscape has changed dramatically over the past decade. Instead of turning to traditional listings, users are tapping into the continuous stream of online information to help inform their decision-making. Such kinds of information include guides, reviews, case studies, social media updates and online customer interactions. By having these types of information available to visitors to your site you can help increase your business’s credibility.

What is Credibility and Why Does It Matter for Your Local Business?

Credibility is important to your business as it increases trust in your brand. It helps push consumers from being merely interested in your product or service to making that initial, or repeat, purchase.

You can think about building you credibility in three parts: what the consumers’ initial perception is; how credible you seem upon inspection; and how you manage credibility over time. In order to make your business trusted online you should be aware of all three aspects.

Initial Perception – This refers to how your business is viewed at first glance and will be important for your click through rate. It is at this stage where your Google star rating can make a difference. In order to see the reviews of your business added to Google search results you will need to have at least five reviews on your Google My Business page.

Credibility upon Inspection – The second element refers to your customer making a decision to research your brand more by visiting your website to read your testimonials, blog, case studies and other content and also by visiting other sites to read reviews or see how you interact, such as on social media.

Credibility over Time – This last stage refers to how up to date your content is. Fresh content will increase the amount of times your business is indexed and will help build your brand’s affinity over time.

How Can You Improve Your Local Business’s Credibility?

A survey carried out in 2014 showed that 88% of search users trusted online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. Furthermore 72% of consumers said that positive reviews make them trust a local business more. This information indicates how important it is for your local business to build credibility in order to be selected over competitors.

You can increase your business’s online reviews either by asking customers face-to-face or online via e-mail. However this is not the only method you should focus on. There are also a number of other ways that you can make your website – and business – appear more credible to visitors.

1. Use Your SEO

Altering your website’s page titles, Meta description and URLs will help improve your business’s search engine ranking. The higher you appear on SERPs the more likely a customer will click on your page, the more likely they will buy your product or service and the more likely they will leave a review.

2. Content is (still) King

Aside from asking customers to write reviews for your business you can also create your own content. This will aid your SEO efforts and will make visitors believe you are an expert in your field.

Each business or industry will lend itself to different content types. You may find users benefit most from case studies to understand how your service helped someone else or that how-to guides work best. Blogging is also a simple way to reinforce your business’s credibility. By adding a regularly updated blog to your website you can help your website get indexed more frequently and improve your conversion rate as users see your website is active.

3. Use Social Media to Your Advantage

Social media is both a blessing and a worry for many small businesses and start-ups. A bad customer experience can quickly be shared multiple times leading to a damaged reputation. However by handling complaints professionally and timely, your business can turn the negativity in credibility as customers admire your customer service skills.

If you would like to find out more about website development contact Adeo Group today. Our website design specialists have developed hundreds of mobile friendly websites.