Building trust online isn’t achieved by any one single action. Trust is achieved by doing many little things correctly throughout your website. When combined, these will give your visitors a sense of trust, honesty, and stability. The good news is it is easy to create and build trust in your online visitors.

Few business owners focus on building trust in the minds of their visitors. When done well, the trust you build becomes a sustainable competitive advantage.

1. Make a good first impression with the design of your site. Having a site that looks professional says a whole lot about your company.
2. Create simple and intuitive navigation. If visitors are not able to find what they are looking for easily, doubt will begin to form about your ability to provide what they want.
3. Give your website a voice that is consistent with your company’s brand. Make sure to use language that is audience appropriate.
4. Make it easy for your visitors to contact you. Provide an email form, telephone number, and address of the company.
5. Answer any incoming emails promptly. Try and answer all emails within 24 hours no more than 48 hours after receiving.
6. Continue to add content and update your site regularly. This shows that your website is active and a focal point for your business.
7. Make a routine to check all your website links. Broken links will cause doubts to quickly form in your visitors’ minds.
8. Spelling and the correct use grammar matter. Typos create the impression of sloppiness and carelessness.
9. Do not make outrageous claims. Your visitors are too smart and will associate your website with those of the get-rich schemes.
10. Do not fake your testimonials. Publish real testimonials and always use real names and link to websites where possible.
11. Write your ‘About Us’ page to be personal and comprehensive. It is important to make visitors feel comfortable and show the real people behind the site.
12. Add your picture and the pictures of any key people involved with your company. This reinforces the fact that there are real people behind the site.
13. Carefully consider any advertising you display on your site. If your website is anything but a blog, I strongly discourage any use of advertising.
14. If you are conducting any transactions over your website make sure you publish a security policy. Clearly indicate what measures you take to ensure that all transactions are secure.
15. If you offer a guarantee make sure it highly visible. If you don’t offer a guarantee I’d suggest you offering one, making it a 100% money-back guarantee if possible.
16. If you display pricing keep your prices up to date, and honor those prices. If unexpected costs do arise, a customer will be much more likely to accept them if a foundation of trust is built.
17. Do not hide charges from your visitors. Make sure they know what to expect in terms of shipping and handling charges.
18. Make your refund and returns policy visible. Do not bury it, use it as a competitive advantage.
19. Use the trust of big brand names and companies to piggyback off of. For example if you use PayPal, put the PayPal logo on your site.
20. Become a member of well-known industry associations for your subject, join up and put their logos on your site. Join your local area Chamber of Commerce and put their logo on your website.
21. Allow visitors to add comments to your articles. Openness and the exchange of views build community and a sense of involvement.
22. If you accept credit cards put images of the credit cards you accept on every page of the order process.
23. Clearly indicate ‘secure website’ whenever you try to get any information from visitors, including newsletter sign-ups, forum input and payment.
24. Offer a low-cost, entry-level option when selling a service such as a subscription. This could be a one-day, one week or a month trial offer.
25. If you do offer a trial make it extremely easy to cancel the offer. Do not try and trap your visitors.
26. Use a high level of security when processing credit cards. Make your visitors aware of all the steps you are taking.
27. Only ask your visitors for information that you really need. For example, for an email newsletter sign-up, only ask for an email address, nothing else is necessary.

Building and gaining trust with your visitors mostly comes down to common sense and good business practices. You can never do too much to build trust. Continually learn what makes a site trustworthy or untrustworthy and implement the relevant changes to your site.