The Secret Of Creating Trust On Your Website

Cindy King — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:00:19 +0000

Every business wants their prospects to trust them. If your prospects don’t trust you they are not going to buy from you.

Foreign Mistrust

The reason why I talk about trust so often is because there is a natural barrier of mistrust that comes up automatically in the vast majority of cross cultural communications.

It is a normal reaction to create a barrier of mistrust when you come into contact with someone who communicates in a way you are not familiar with. There is often different body language and different behaviors reinforcing this difference.

Clarity And Consistency

In all international communication it is essential to build up trust with all of the ways you can. Most of these ways are small and subtle.

Building trust can be narrowed down to two things:

Clarity
Consistency

When you look at it like this, it becomes easier to see how you can create trust on your website.

Good Standard Web Practices

Did you notice anything in particular?

These are two of the standard best practices for any online website. They are there are a reason.

Essential Base For Trust

Clarity and consistency build trust intrinsically.

Sure testimonials and awards can also create trust, and they particularly work well in some cultures. But without absolute clarity and consistency throughout all of your website your testimonials and awards will not feel quite right to your international visitors. They will pick up bad vibes.

Do you think your website is good?
Do you think there is clarity throughout?
Is everything on your website consistent?

Work On Your Website To Build Trust

It takes a little work to make a great website. It takes work to create clarity and consistency throughout all of your website. For you to create trust in your international visitors you need to strive for the highest standards possible in clarity and consistency for your website.

An international web marketer will go through your website with a very fine comb to look for the smallest lack of clarity and consistency. He will look to see if you need to add a word here or there to build trust for your business.

A cross cultural marketer will compare your trust building elements of your website to the needs of your specific foreign markets. Yes, different cultures like certain things to be emphasized more than other cultures. Comparing your website with the cultural needs of the countries you are targeting will build trust faster.

What’s The Secret?

Apply the highest standards of clarity and consistency throughout your website. Both your domestic and your international audiences will respond better to your communication with it.

The Secret Of Creating Trust On Your Website
More soon…

Here are a few more article series on Trust