When it comes to website visitors, trust can be difficult to earn. Since you’re not interacting one-on-one, the absence of conversation and body language makes it difficult for visitors to discern legitimate sites from scams.
Social proof builds trust
One of the best ways to create the experience of trust with your visitors is by sharing a broader vision of who you are and what you do, including the recognition you’ve received from others for your work. Recognition from others is often referred to as “social proof.”
Social proof builds trust because people make buying decisions based on other people’s experiences. You can take advantage of this by adding reviews and testimonials to your webpages.
Self-promotion is healthy
Unfortunately, many of us have been conditioned to believe that self-promotion is shameful, even though it’s vital to our success. If you don’t like talking about yourself because you don’t want to come across as obnoxious, take a step back for a moment and consider the situation from someone else’s perspective.
Is it possible that your story might be interesting to someone else? Do you think your awards and accomplishments would support others in making the decision to buy from you? Would the big names you’ve worked with boost your credibility? Chances are, your story is interesting to others, so don’t be afraid to share.
Your accomplishments make you interesting
If you don’t reveal something to your visitors that sets you apart from the competition, they’re not going to remember you and they’ll find someone else with an interesting story to tell.
Showcasing your accomplishments isn’t bragging
Displaying your accomplishments and big names you’ve worked with is a great way to build trust with your website visitors. When you share your professional accomplishments, people will see more value in what you have to offer.
Take The Grooves, for example. They’re a local San Antonio cover band that gets plenty of gigs for high profile Fortune 500 companies, and they’re not afraid to show it. As stated on their website, since 1991, they’ve played for corporations like Chevron, Apple, Ford, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Dupont, Bank of America, and even Lexus. They’re also a popular pick for weddings, which is a huge compliment by itself.
With five star reviews across websites like Weddingwire, Wedding Mapper, Yelp and The Wedding Channel, they have earned the right to be proud of their success.
Imagine looking for a local band to play at your corporate event and finding a couple of options. One website belongs to The Grooves. The other website just has the band’s name across the top, some embedded YouTube videos of their past performances, and a contact form that says, “hire us for your party.” Which one would you choose? The Grooves, of course!
The other band may have played for the Queen of England, but unless they put it on their website to establish their value, nobody’s going to know.
People want to hire you because of your success
People want to know how your accomplishments are going to benefit them. For example, hiring managers want to see resumes with numbers that show how the candidate has added quantifiable value to the company. And they’ll eliminate people who don’t quantify their accomplishments. They’re not looking for people who brag, they’re looking for results.
Don’t overdo it
Just because sharing your accomplishments can help you build trust with your website visitors doesn’t mean you need to share everything. You might have enough awards to cover 10 football fields, but that doesn’t mean people want to read about all of them.
Going overboard with the amount of information you share is a guaranteed way to make people think you’re bragging. You can build trust by sharing your accomplishments based on what’s going to guide your visitors toward seeing you in a positive, professional light. And doing business with you will be a natural outpouring from that trust.