If you are a service based business you need your website to create, build or maintain a high level of trust. Whether you are a service for consumers (lawn care, electrician, chiropractor, mechanic) or a service for businesses (consultant, accountant, web designer, bank), you are after the user’s trust.

Building Trust With Your Website Content
When you meet with someone in person, there are factors that earn their trust. Some of the trust factors are appearance from how you are dressed, the way you talk, the way you listen, the examples you can give them of your success. You also have the ability to tailor the conversation to each personality type or issue to hit their hotspots, answer their biggest questions and ultimately earn their trust.

Online, it’s tough to adjust on the fly, but here is how you can provide content on your website to earn their trust. Below is a Trusted Web Content Pyramid that I will break down to give you the best chance or earning your website visitors trust and their business.

+ Case Studies - Top Level
This is at the top for me. Why? Because I feel that ultimately every user feels significant trust in seeing their same situation or problem addressed. Getting the user to think “That’s the same issue or need I have, they have what I need.”. Building this content our on your website is simple, just outline what the customers issue is/was, then talk about how your service solves it, mix in some type of visuals to compliment and reinforce your solution and close it with the outcome. Building out these case studies and and continually adding to them brings trusted content to your website.

In a brief example our web design portfolio and project blog posts are examples of this. We outline what the client’s needs were when they came to us, the services we put into their website and the outcome is available for viewing on the site and by clicking the link to visit the website for yourself.

+ Features - Mid Level
Many companies often mistake their features as the top content on their website. Although very important, it’s not the top. To get the most out of your service features and build trust, make sure you organize the information correctly and make it easy to read. Make use of bullet points or icons to separate out features. Keep descriptions short by providing the main feature and then limiting yourself to one or two sentences of supporting information. Provide details, specs or data that supports in anyway possible. Lastly make use of visuals to support your features. This can be in the form of photos, graphics or video.

+ Benefits - Mid Level
If anything from this post, remember this: can the marketing copy. People are tired of the “latest, greatest, biggest, blah …blah …blah”. Use website content that is straightforward and real to relay your benefits. Link to the case studies and examples you have provided on your site (top level) as they relate to the specific benefits. When possible, translate your service benefits into numbers. What do you save the consumer or business in money, time or efficiency? Finding ways to provide numbers give the user a clear message on your benefit.

+ Company Info, Visuals & Clients - Bottom Level
Yes these are on the bottom, but they do the dirty work of a supporting role. Having information on your companies history, awards, key staff and affiliations provides a personal touch and needed background. Highlighting staff that customers might interact with builds familiarity and that builds trust.

I touched on visuals earlier and I probably will do an entire post on this at some point, but at least provide photos of YOU. Showing your employees, your company, your vehicles, your office or anything else builds familiarity and trust. You can obviously take things to a different level in using a professional photographer or web company to shoot them or producing a video. Lastly list out your past customers, clients or even add a few testimonials. If you do put out some testimonials, I suggest adding a photo of the client or project, not just having the same boring 2 or 3 sentences everyone provides on their website.

There you have some simple ways to write and produce content on your website that builds trust and business. Put them to use or maybe share how you have already had success online by leveraging similar items to my pyramid or examples.

When getting new business cards to start 2008 I added my Skype ID to my listing of contact information on my business cards.  I use Skype quite a bit, it’s one more way to connect with me, so it made sense.  Now that I have been growing addicted to Twitter, I think that having my Twitter ID  on my business card would be an even better idea.

My main value in Twitter currently is networking and following other great business, web design and Internet marketing minds.  As Twitter continues to grow  in the mainstream, I hope to utilize it as a touch-point and educational tool with my clients and potential clients.  These reasons lead me to think that my next reprint of business cards later this year will have my Twitter ID on it.  (AaronWeiche)

Here is a mock-up of my current business card with my Twitter info replacing where my current Skype info is.

Business Card Front:

Business Card Back

Are you considering adding your Twitter ID or do you already have it on your business card?  Maybe you heavily utilize another web service like Facebook, LinkedIn or an IM.  What about those?

USA Today’s Jefferson Graham recently did a video segment on Google by interviewing Google’s Matt Cutts for their Tech Talk section. The video is great to get a base understanding of Google’s search results and and search engine optimization basics.

The biggest takeaways I found:

+ It’s tough to be found for a term being searched if that text isn’t on your website somehere, listen to Matt’s example for a San Diego Chiropractor.

+ The importance of title tags and meta desciption tags, not only for Google in understanding the page, but for users deciding on what search results to click on.

+ Blogs! Blogs are a great way to acquire inbound links and put out engaging and valuable content. Hello small businesses!?!?!

+ Submit your site map, or have your web person or firm do it for you. It’s an easy way to get Google to crawl your site and index pages.

Make sure you check out the video.

Side note to USA Today Tech Talk: Put your videos into a player that others can embed to better promote you on their blogs and websites. Be a bit more social!

Email marketing is such a powerful and affordable tool, but I’m still surprised at how many small businesses fail to utilize it.  Many businesses I talk to just seem to be overwhelmed with content ideas for what they can do with an email marketing program.  With our email marketing services, we not only give a business a custom email design, an easy to use creation and management tool … we develop ideas.

This first installment of email marketing ideas is aimed at a small retail business that might be selling books, clothes, home decor, antiques, specialty items and so forth.  In the future I will be releasing other ideas for different types of businesses.

Idea #1 - Build a bigger list of emails!  Try give-aways, coupons or other rewards for joining your e-club or list.  Permission based email marketing is all about getting that email address, so test different rewards that help you gather email addresses and build your list.

Idea #2 -  Partner with a local band/music group that has a CD out or an upcoming show.  Promote them in your e-letter or e-offer and give away their CD or tickets to an upcoming show with a purchase.  You will need to find a group in line with your audience/target but it spices up your offer and they’ll love the intro to your audience.

Idea #3 - Find a community group or non-profit to partner with.  Donating a percentage of that month’s or a certain day’s sales to a local group is not only goodwill but good business.  They in turn will promote you and you give customers added incentive to buy with you.

Idea #4 - Use your e-letter to promote an “Our Treat” offer.  Let the coffee shop, bakery or ice cream shop next door or down the block give you coupons for a free coffee, pastrie or ice cream cone that you can place in every bag at purchase.  The partner business loves that you promote them and your customers love a free treat.

Idea #5 -  Set-up a “Power Hour”.  Advertise a specific hour that has super savings, a raffle or another promotion that can’t be ignored.  Promotions that have time frames add that additional motivation to shop and buy.  The best part is that only your email list customers find out about this special hour.

Well, there you have five email marketing ideas for a small retail business.  Maybe give one a try or mix a few together to see what it can do for you.  Feel free to share any additional ideas you may have or have tried.