In business, when you meet someone in person you can use your judgement to decide if you trust them. When you visit a website, on the other hand, it can be sometimes challenging to feel that same type of trust.
 
The goal of a website might be to create awareness, be descriptive and to sell a product or service. But what is it exactly that makes an online visitor reach out to you, become a donor or convert into a customer? How do you create a website that people trust?
 
Here are 5 website features that people trust:

1.) Valuable Quality Content

A well put together article that solves a problem for your audience will always be memorable, especially if that article saved that person time and money. It creates credibility, it makes a person feel attended and can resonate to such a degree that they feel the need to share it. The ultimate power of quality content, especially if it brings value to your audience, is that it remains online until you remove it. 5 years can go by and it will still be helping someone solve a problem. Being a problem-solver makes your website trustworthy.

2.) Personalized Photography That Shares Emotion

Quality commercial photography plays a large role in creating trust in a virtual experience. Choosing between stock photography and commercial photography that is tailored to your business makes a huge difference. Images that share how you do business and how you interact with your clients gives your first time online visitors an idea what to expect. By sharing faces of the staff and images of your facility, creates a peace of mind before setting foot into your place of business. Especially if someone is coming from a distance. But the real magic happens when images share personality, culture and emotion.

3.) Videography with an Exceptional Storyboard

There isn’t a better way to welcome your visitors into your world than through video. Video gives organizations the opportunity to introduce themselves to the public. It also gives the opportunity to take an online experience to the next level by sharing expression, a way of (business) life, and the ability to find out if there’s a good fit or not. A well done video with an exceptional storyboard can become memorable. It can lock your audience’s attention immediately and has the ability to give you a head start with trust.

4.) Social Media that Shares Company Culture and Thought Leadership

Nowadays, many professionals go through company social media channels such as; LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, to discover a type of mindset. A typical audience behavior would be to check if a business is active on social media and if so, what type of information are they sharing and do they know their stuff? These social media channels give the opportunity for organizations to become thought leaders in their industry. This ability of sharing knowledge or culture creates credibility and adds more trust to the pile.

5.) A Beautiful Website Design

Regardless of all marketing investments, your audience will end up on your website. A well designed website is a tremendous factor in building trust, especially for new business. A website today needs to deliver an effortless user-friendly experience from a desktop to a mobile device. Information needs to be extremely easy to find and the flow of the site has to be welcoming. A structure of quality copy, colors, spacing, typography, icons, photography, and video must live in flawless harmony. Last, in order to stand out from the rest, there needs to be a defined style that’s true to the brand.
 
A great website goal to aim for is to create trust through a virtual experience. I hope these five features can take you there.