9 Tips for Improving the Credibility of Your Small Business Web Site

Potential customers can land on your site from a variety of avenues: PPC ads, display ads, a referral from a friend, search engine listing, or a local listing. Regardless of how they got there, your visitors will quickly assess whether they are interested in doing business with you. If that first impression is poor, you may have just as quickly lost a potential customer.

If you are a small business owner who serves local customers—a plumber, dentist, spa, landscaper, or car repair shop, for example—here are 9 tips you can use to improve your credibility with visitors and help convert them to customers:

Tip 1: Include customer testimonials

Testimonials are one of the best ways to sell yourself and your services to new clients. Consider not only dedicating an entire page to testimonials, but also sprinkling relevant testimonials throughout your website, including your home page. To be effective, a testimonial should include at least the first name and last initial, plus the location, of the customer providing it.

Tip 2: Add photos of you and your staff to your website

People do business with people, not businesses. Photos make your site more personal and friendly, and less corporate in nature. Be sure the photos you use are of good quality, and that everyone is smiling and dressed in an appropriate manner for your business. You can also include photos of your office building or facilities.

Tip 3: Use Better Business Bureau and Chamber of Commerce logos

If you belong to either of these organizations (consider joining at least one if you haven’t already), be sure to display their logo in a prominent place on your home page or landing page. By associating with either of these organizations, you bring credibility to your business, and membership in these organizations can help you differentiate your business from the competition.

Similarly, if you have won any community service awards, let the world know. Describe what it is and why you won it. Or link out to another site that does this for you. People like doing business with those who are committed to helping others in the community.

Tip 4: Tell your story

To make potential customers feel more comfortable with you, tell them how you got into your current business or line of work. Perhaps you are a landscaper who’s had a passion for gardening ever since you were 10 years old and planted your first flower garden with your mom. Or maybe your auto shop is the culmination of a life-long dream to work on the world’s finest sports cars.

Tip 5: Let readers know how long you’ve been in business

If your company has served your local market for a good chunk of time, be sure to prominently display that information on your site. You may also want to mention the name of the community or communities you service in a very visible location on your site. This small and easy step will not only help assure potential customers that you’re a committed, long-time member of their community, but it will also help improve the search engine optimization ranking of your site for local searches, and therefore make it more discoverable.

Tip 6: Write some expert articles for your website

If you have an area or two that you specialize in, consider writing some detailed articles for your website. Articles can position you as an expert, provide value to those who arrive at your site, and help you gain the interest and confidence of potential customers who seek someone with your specialized knowledge.

For example, if you’re a landscape gardener who specializes in environmentally-friendly landscaping, consider writing an article or two on topics like what plants to use to minimize the need for watering, or how to use ground covers, rock, and mulch to reduce the use of herbicides.

Tip 7: Highlight your professional credentials

Potential customers who land on your site will be asking the question: Are you and your company qualified to do the work you do? So it’s important that you provide your credentials. Here are some ideas:

· If you are a contractor, include your contractor license number on your website. It’s also a good idea to mention that you are licensed and bonded.

· For professionals, list or describe your educational background, degrees, certificates, and any specialized training you’ve had.

· List any professional or trade memberships you belong to.

Tip 8: Include a video

Adding video or other multimedia effects requires a bit more effort and can be somewhat pricey, but the rewards will make it worthwhile. Having a video on your site will set you apart from your competition. It will encourage potential customers to spend more time on your site, and the longer they stay, the more likely they are to become customers.

If you have a reasonably good speaking voice and feel comfortable in front of a video camera, work with a professional videographer to make a short video to introduce yourself and your business. Place the video in a prominent place on your site, preferably above the fold, where it will be seen by everyone who lands there without their having to scroll to find it.

Here’s an important point to note: Do not have the video begin playing automatically; always give your visitors control over when to play any media files on your site. Just as a loud and sudden noise will cause a bird to immediately take flight, so too might an unexpected video cause potential customers to leave your website.

Tip 9: Provide compelling customer success stories

Success stories that depict how you helped create very satisfied customers are even more powerful than customer testimonials alone.

A good story might describe a problem you solved for the customer, any criteria or constraints you dealt with, or hurdles you had to leap, the successful solution, and, of course, how pleased your customer was with your solution.

To make the story more credible and to engage more of the reader’s senses, try including before and after photos, a video, and actual customer quotes.

Well, there you have it. Nine tips: Some easy to implement, some requiring a bit more effort. But in the end, all will help to transform your site into one that sells you and your company as reliable, reputable, competent, honest, and dedicated to helping serve the community and customers in your local area.

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to share your own tips on this subject.