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How to get on the first page of Digg in less than 4 weeks. 
Why do I buy appliances and electronics from Costco? Because I love their life time warranty. The truth is that I have never tested that warranty. Yet I am confident that any Costco in the US will honor it. That confidence is so strong that I shop at Costco over many of its competitors. So do you want to increase your site conversion rate? Can you establish such confidence in the minds of your site visitor? It is not that easy, is it?
One of the first challenges that many companies face online is establishing consumer trust and confidence. It might be easy for the top 100 ecommerce sites to gain the customer confidence but you are not one of them. So, while Amazon enjoys the name recognition, its online competitors have to struggle with building consumer trust in their brand.
What gives clients this low sense of confidence in the first place and how can you deal with it:
Lack of confidence in your company
Does your site look fishy or give the impression that it is selling a scam of some sort? I know it probably doesn’t, but will clients think so? You need to build confidence that you are the best at what you offer your clients. How do you do that?
1. Create client-centric, visitor-focused copy: I talked about giving clients what they want and how that can help you improve your conversion rate.
2. Design your site with easy navigation: goes with the point above but I wanted to emphasize it some more. My golden rule is to make sure the site visitor is able to get to anything they want within 3 clicks. To sum it up, put the customer first and watch your website conversion rate increase.
3. Provide real value on your site: People do not want to be sold, they love to buy. And yes, do not hard sell on your site. Give your clients great industry information through whitepapers or case studies. Some people want to keep their trade secret to themselves. If the visitor does not find this information on your site, he will find it on your competitor’s site.
4. Include PLENTY of testimonials: this is one of the best ways you can build a user’s trust; they need to see who your clients are, what you did for them, and how. Of course, make sure that these testimonials are real and from actual clients!
5. Manage your online reputation. There is nothing worse than searching for a company and getting hundreds of reviews that tell you how bad that company is. Always remeber that poor customer services and scams are easy to discover with Google.
Lack of confidence in products/services
If packaging is essential offline, it is even more significant online. I have seen too many clients with low conversion rates because their own site does a horrible job in representing of their products or services. Quick tips to build confidence in your company:
6. Include high quality images for your products: images displayed on your site can make a product look cheap and ugly. By the way, high quality does not mean large size images that take forever to download. The rule of thumb is to keep image size to less than 15 kb. An image optimizer can do wonders in reducing the size of your product images while keeping their quality.
7. Deal with bad reviews head on: With you or without you, the online community is always talking. It’s estimated that 54% of customers check product review venues before making a purchase. If you’re offering bad products and services don’t be surprised about low conversion rates. Before getting out there and selling your stuff, make sure it’s of the best quality in order to avoid this very embarrassing obstacle.
Lack of confidence in the site
Maroon background, neon font, and clipart make for one ugly site. You can’t PAY me to buy anything or sign up for anything from a site that looks that horrid. Are there actually sites actually still OUT THERE? Yes, and you can probably talk to the owner of the site who will tell you that they did a swell job with it! Okay, just stop right there, you’re still wondering why your client has low confidence? OH MY GOD! Just re-do your nasty site and see the difference it will make! How do you fix that?
8. Get professional help to design your site: Many people think they are great designers; few are actually good at it. You can hire a professional web designer to redo your website for a minimal investment. Of course, if you do hire someone, guide them through the process. So, no flash and no fancy images that take forever to download. Web designers are good at design; they are not experts in creating a site that converts well.
Lack of confidence in your customer care
Customer service starts the minute someone lands on your site. It should never end when someone buys something from you. Every customer should generate repeat business. Here is the online twist: it is not enough to provide amazing customer services to every client; you must let your site visitors know about your customer service.
9. A satisfaction guarantee goes a long way in assuring customers that you will stand behind your products or services. So can you put your money where you mouth is?
10. Indicate through your copy and some icons that customer service is a top priority. Include things such as how fast is your response time to a problem or questions they might have.
11 Don’t be a “Sprint”: Sprint is notorious for bad customer service; they are rated the worst customer service phone service out there! Sprint experiences a close to 50% customer dissatisfaction rate with their services and customer care. Recently, the company “fired” 1000 of their worst customers; rather than getting the 1 phone call complaint a month per customer, these customers were averaging 50 times per month! Well I guess that’s the latest trend for companies out there: fire your complaining customers!
Lack of confidence in the security of the site
This is a huge one. People are already worried about giving you their private information. And if they feel even the slightest lack of security they will leave! So make sure your site gives them a feeling of safe
12 f you are a B2C site, you’d better make sure that pages that require sensitive information are absolutely secured and the client is aware of this.
13 If you are lead generation site, you need to include text of how much you value the customer’s privacy and that is a top priority.
So as you can see, there are many things that will stop a visitor from becoming a client. Make sure you tackle each issue and really try to build confidence in each individual area. Have you experienced any lack of confidence recently from your customers? How did you resolve it?
Over 120 pages of tips and techniques to