Building Credibility and Trust as the basis of building sales

For the vast majority of businesses, any market worth being in or with most sustainable business models, sales is not a one time event, but a process.

You first have to create awareness, firstly build trust, then finally make the sale. Do all 3 happen at once for some people? Sure, but probably not for the majority of customers.

The problem for many websites is that they do not actually build credibility. With external links you are going to only have marginal success building your brand if you start by focusing on sites that are outside of the area of your area of focus.

If a person who has trust and a broad base of readership recommends you that creates immediate sales. We see this evidenced in many websites daily sales data and their affiliate statistics. In spite of the hype, if you get featured on social media and generic business directory sites it does not necessarily lead to many sales. Perhaps that exposure leads to awareness, which can further be enhanced by writing about that community, buying banner ads from sites, or by writing other create subscription-worthy content, but generally in content editorial link from a trusted expert creates more sales than exposure on a nearly automated hollow social news site.

If your site is new to the market and you want some exposure you have two options

Create a viral marketing campaign (read Seth Goddin’s ‘The Purple Cow’, or create things that people inside you business community will find useful

One of those strategies may get you in the Guinness book of world records. The other will make sales.

What you need to ensure is that everything in and about your website and any references to it totally substantiate the position of BUILDING TRUST.