Building Trust (Part 4 of 5):
How product offers can reinforce trust.
October 19, 2006
This is part four of a five part series on building trust in your visitors in order to convert them to customers.
Step 4. The visitor reads your product offer.
You sparked the visitor’s trust when they read the article that led to your web site. Then your fanned the spark into a flame with your web site’s professional appearance and quality content. That flame became a bonfire when the gifts you offered convinced the visitor to join your mailing list, throwing logs on the fire of their trust as they read more and more of the advice and helpful information you provided.
Now, and only now, do you directly offer products to your visitors. Sure you’ll catch a few ad clicks and affiliate sales from links around your site, but the real money is in the product offer.
The end goal of any commercial web site is to sell something. Almost all of your visitors recognize that it costs money to run a web site, and that a web site is a business out to earn money for its owner.
So don’t be afraid to send your list a product offer from time to time. Few list members will be put off by that, and those few who are can always unsubscribe and never hear from you again. The rest of your list members trust you, and they want to read about the products you find valuable.
That’s why it’s so important to pick top quality products to promote. Your list members expect anything you recommend to them to be of the same quality as the information that you have been giving them. Their trust in the products you promote is an extension of their trust in you.
Any reactions (positive or negative) to the products you recommend impacts your visitor's trust in you. If they love the product that you recommended, they'll be more likely to listen to you again the next time. If they hated it, at best their trust in you will be dented and they will think twice before acting on another of your recommendations. At worst you’ll lose them forever.
So be very careful when selecting the products you will recommend. Don't recommend a product just because it seems related to your subject and will earn you a great commission. Buy the product yourself (or see if you can get one for free so you can review it). Examine the product and make sure it's something your visitors will find useful. If you can't honestly praise it yourself, don't try and sell it to your customers!
But if you can praise it, and you do praise it, the list members who have grown to trust you and are in need of a product of the sort you are promoting will buy from you.
Sometimes, however, a list member just isn't ready to buy. They like what they're hearing from you, and they have some trust in you because of it, but they need a little something to push them over the line from undecided list member to paying customer.
That's where free bonuses come in. If you can promise something extra to the user if they buy the product through you, then the list member will often be tempted to take that leap of faith in you and buy the product you're recommending. If you're recommending only top quality products, they will be happy that they decided to purchase, and their trust in you will grow.
Giving free bonuses with products you're promoting that you did not create also helps ensure that your list members buy through your link instead of somebody else's.
But even with the addition of free bonuses, not everyone will be ready to buy. That's why following up after a promotion is needed.
Tomorrow's post will examine the final step that leads to converting a visitor into a sale by building trust: following up.
Building Trust (Part 3 of 5):
Using your mailing list to build trust.
October 18, 2006
This is part three of a five part series on building trust in your visitors in order to convert them to customers.
Step 3. The visitor joins your mailing list.
If you’ve played your cards right, the visitor we've been talking about in the last two parts of this series has been given a small amount of trust by reading the article that led to your web site, and then your web site’s professional appearance boosted his or her trust in you and the information you provide.
Now it’s time to continue the reinforcement of that trust by getting the visitor on your mailing list. That is the third step in the journey toward a sale.
I've repeatedly encouraged people to build up a mailing list. Your mailing list is what's going to bring you the most customers. It does this because it gives you the most opportunities to build trust in your audience.
To that end, you should have an opt-in box on every single one of the pages of your web site. Be sure to give people an incentive to get on your mailing list. Don’t just tell them that they will be notified of new articles if they join the list, give them a free gift for signing up.
An ebook or a 5 day mini-course is great because it doesn't cost you anything but has a lot of value in the eyes of the visitor. Another great thing about informational gifts is that they further reinforce trust by demonstrating your expertise even more.
Once you have the visitor on the list, notify them each time you post new articles to your site (as long as you don't send them a notice more than once every other day or so). They will visit, read the article, and perhaps click on an ad or buy a product. But most importantly the trust they have in you will grow. Your advice will become more and more important to them as long as it remains of high quality.
Now that you have reinforced the list member's trust in you, it's time to have the visitor take the fourth step in the journey toward a sale.
Tomorrow's post will examine the fourth step that leads to converting a visitor into a sale by building trust: your product offer.
Building Trust (Part 2 of 5):
Web sites that inspire trust.
October 17, 2006
This is part two of a five part series on building trust in your visitors in order to convert them to customers.
Step 2. The visitor sees your web site.
In my previous post I talked about the importance of pre-building trust in your visitors by writing articles and distributing them to as many sites as possible. This displays your expertise to the reader and entices them to take the second step in the five-step journey to your making a sale: visiting your web site.
Obviously you can't do business online without an online presence, but you will do very little business online if the site you have is of poor quality.
Look at it from your visitor’s perspective. If they found your site through an article you’ve written, then the article must have impacted them enough to make them want to visit your web site. But if they land on your site only to find a home-grown, unprofessional web presence, the little bit of trust you’ve already built up in them is destroyed.
Think of your web site the same way you think about how to dress for a job interview. When you're interviewing for a job, you're selling yourself. You might be the most qualified person for the job hands down, but if you show up for a corporate job interview in jeans and a T-shirt, with unbrushed hair and smelling a little funny, do you really think anyone is going to hire you?
The same is true of your web site. Your visitor is essentially interviewing you, to see whether or not they want to “hire” you as a consultant for them and their needs.
If you want people to listen to you, to trust you, and to buy from you, you have to give quality information in a format that is attractive and reinforces in the visitor's mind that you are a professional who can be trusted. If that means you need to invest a little money in a nice template, do it! It will pay you back one hundred fold.
If your visitor found your site through an article you wrote, then you want the quality of your web site to reflect the quality of the article that brought the visitor there. It should be professional, polished, no misspelled words or improper grammar. It should have a clean, smooth look with graphics that add punch without being overwhelming. The navigation should be simple and obvious.
A note: if the visitor read something negative about you or your web site, and visited your site out of curiosity (which happens a lot–like people who slow down on the highway to stare at an accident), then having a quality web site with top-notch content can dispel any preconceived negative notions about you.
So make sure to give your web site design a lot of thought and a professional appearance.
Tomorrow's post will examine the third step that leads to converting a visitor into a sale by building trust: your mailing list.
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. 
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