Build Trust with Your Website Content Honestly

This Halloween, more children are going to be treated than tricked. Those costumed kids may shout, “Trick or treat!” from your front stoop, but you know there’s no trick, just plenty of treats. Candy. That’s what the holiday is all about.

In the virtual world of the Internet, people still want that kind of innocent simplicity. They expect it, just like the kids on your stoop expect candy. If you’re looking for information on how to make your own chocolate, for example, you don’t have the time or patience to sit through a commercial, you want the darn recipe. And yet many businesses still deliver ads instead of information. That’s a trick.

Treat, Don’t Trick

When your business builds trust through its website by delivering on a promise, visitors appreciate and remember that. It’s a simple thing to be honest with your online content, and it’s something Ray Access prides itself on. If your website has a page explaining how to make chocolate, visitors expect to see a simple recipe or even better, a video. If you can manage to present the information clearly, in a way that’s easily scannable, you’ve won some converts.

If, however, your website lapses into hyperbole or outright lying just to draw a crowd, it may enjoy an early surge of popularity, but eventually it has to fail. Don’t trick your visitors. While you may attract a small stream of new visitors, no one will ever return — kind of like the creepy house that gives out that hard candy from the 1940s. No one ever goes back for seconds.

Build Trust with Your Website

Your website is more than your online storefront; it’s the face of your company. You can use it to build a community loyal to you, or you can fill your pages with ads. Consider which site brings visitors back. When you build trust with your website, you connect with your visitors in an emotional way. A positive way. When you use your website to sell everything you can, you also spark an emotional reaction. A negative one.

Build trust with your website content, and you’ll get to sell your products or services because people do business with people and companies they genuinely like. And you get people to like you by being honest with them. Treat your website visitors; don’t trick them.

Click-Bait

“Click-bait” has become the new irresistible Internet advertising scheme. And it seems to be everywhere. Click-bait is the headline that piques your interest enough to click on it. When you land on a click-bait page, however, you’re treated to a multi-page advertising engine that provides just enough enticing content — on average about 10 percent of the total page — to keep you clicking.

In other words, click-bait is a vehicle for ensnaring people browsing the Internet. But click-bait articles rarely deliver on the promises of their original headlines. Instead, it’s just a way to show you more ads.

Be a Halloween Favorite

If you don’t build trust with your website, you may be succumbing to click-bait mentality. Don’t be that guy, that girl or that company that gives out crappy candy on Halloween. Invest in candy people actually want, and they’ll come back.

It’s the exact same philosophy with your website. Don’t use click-bait headlines to draw in visitors. Deliver clear, consistent, honest information on your website. Visitors appreciate it; they’ll remember you because of it. When they need your product or service, they’ll return. And then, instead of asking for candy, they’ll be asking for your business.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.