Instilling confidence and trust with your copy

This excellent post at Copyblogger talks about imaginary trolls that stop your customers and clients from doing business with you.

It is a bad, bad world isn’t it? Especially so on the Internet where every unscrupulous element can quickly set up a website and start executing his or her spurious activities to deprive you of your money. The situation is worsened by the fact that the Internet has no geographical boundaries and it is not bound by local jurisdictions. So someone in America can easily cheat someone in India and vice versa.

As rightly mentioned in the Copyblogger link, we are all haunted by our previous experiences whenever we want to buy something or subscribe to something. The imminent fraud is amplified when money is involved; you feel more stupid when you pay for something that you don’t get.

A person trying to sell a product or service on the Internet has to overcome a greater challenge compared to the actual world. On the Internet the only mode of communication is your website. You are not just fighting with mistrust you are also fighting with a zillion distractions. In order to the business on the Internet your website copy has to:

• Engage the prospect
• Dispel his or her fears and apprehensions
• Lead him or her to carry out the transaction

How can you do that?

Have lots of quality content

The first thing that you can do is have lots of quality content on your website. Having lots of quality content on your website means that you are really putting your money and effort where your mouth is. You will put so much effort only if you are serious about your work and feel confident about delivering.

Aside from establishing a sense of confidence high quality content also helps you attract targeted traffic from search engines, blogs and social media websites.

Provide all possible solutions

When a prospect arrives at your website he or she is full of questions not only regarding what he or she wants but also regarding how well you can deliver. You need to answer all the questions your visitor can possibly come up with. Take for instance these questions:

• Are you for real? Display your contact information prominently. A photograph may also help. A regularly updated blog is quite reassuring and if you are constantly interacting with your visitors, nothing like it. Create a strong social media presence so that your customer or client knows that your reputation is at stake if you don’t perform.
• Is my money safe? How do I make sure that I will receive the product or the service once I have paid? Properly explain this procedure on your website and also clearly specify what your refund policy is in case something bad happens and the customer is unable to receive the product on the service.
• Are you easily reachable? Make sure that you are just one call away in case the customer or the client needs to call you.

There might be many more questions; it depends on the kind of product or service you are providing.

Put visitors’ interest first

Okay, this reminds me to change my copy to (I am constantly learning and sometimes I teach myself). Highlight benefits instead of features. Handle the most pertinent question in the very beginning: what is the greatest benefit of your product or service? For instance, if I write your copy how is it going to benefit your business or your presence on the Internet? There are two things I am confident about:

• Increasing your conversion rate
• Writing search engine optimized content to increase your search engine rankings

Now, a person shouldn’t be bothered about how well I write and how I can juggle around words and how well-read I am. Can I really solve your problem? If you want to increase your conversion rate can I achieve that for you through my copywriting services? If you want more traffic from search engines can I do that?

Put your visitors’ interest first instead of blowing your own horn and feeling gung ho about what a great offer you have got.

What do your existing customers and clients have to say about you and your business?

For this you need a testimonials page where you publish all the great things your customers and clients have to say about you and your business. In fact your testimonial page is one of the most important aspects of your website.

The basic idea is that your copy should communicate a sense of trustworthiness and accountability.