In order to gain traffic and conversions, you have to establish yourself as a trustworthy business right away in the SERPs. Since searchers can find endless listings of relevant pages, you have to immediately demonstrate why they should pick you over the competition. It’s all about trust – searchers want to avoid spammy, unreliable sources and get straight to relevant information.
Authorship Is Key
If you haven’t started using Google+’s authorship tag yet, start now! With authorship, your content is linked to your Google+ profile as well as all of the other authored posts connected to you. Ideally, authorship demonstrates that you or your company have a history of producing relevant, high quality material.
Why is this so important for gaining user trust? Because when your photo shows up with a listing, it shows that you are proud of this content and are therefore willing to connect your name and your face to your work. Hopefully that means that it isn’t a load of junk!
In addition, authorship demonstrates your involvement within a community or industry. Since the number of people that have you in their circles is also displayed in your listings, authorship allows you to show that you are a respected part of your industry. In order to maintain good standing as an author, it is crucial to maintain a high standard for your work and avoid posting anything that could be interpreted as spammy or insincere.
The Influence of Reviews
Besides an authorship tag, your listings can gain authority by displaying positive ratings based on Google+ reviews. If your listing has a 4.5-star rating, searchers are much more likely to trust you instead of a competitor with a 2-star rating.
While positive reviews are clearly beneficial to gaining trust, the way you respond to negative reviews can also contribute to how your brand is perceived. If your responses to negative reviews are calm, respectful, and publicly deal with any problems, customers are going to trust you to deal with them fairly and politely.
Sincerity
It all comes down to sincerity. Searchers will trust a company that has a sincere, reliable image. Indicators like authorship and ratings may influence your image, but content and promotions that are insincere or too focused on just making a sale can quickly destroy trust.
When you develop your listings, consider carefully how you want to portray your company. Yes, you have to include a compelling CTA in your meta descriptions, but make sure you walk the fine line between engaging interest and being too pushy. Focusing on providing useful, valuable content and products for your customers can help you to avoid losing their trust.
If you fear that searchers don’t trust your business, why not try hiring the services of an experienced industry professional? Contact the Internet Marketing specialists over at Integrity Marketing & Consulting today 1-877-769-0885.