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The Importance of Credibility in B2b Content Writing

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The importance of credibility in B2B content writing

The importance of credibility in B2B content writing.

B2B content writing is all about establishing your credibility. Your business partners need information they can trust.

On your website and blog, you can write anything, and you can claim anything. Unless the information that you present is backed with evidence, it doesn’t make much of an impact.

Credibility comes with proof.

Credibility comes when you show up regularly.

One sure shot way of presenting proof is publishing lots of case studies and testimonials on your website that showcase what you have achieved for your customers and clients.

Another way is, sharing your knowledge and wisdom on an ongoing basis.

“Ongoing basis” is very important if you want to establish your credibility as a B2B entity.

What does credible content writing for B2B mean?

What does credibility mean? It means the degree of trust that people have in you.

It is difficult to establish trust unless you actually work with someone but then, there is always the first time – the first time you need to work with someone. How do you establish trust if you haven’t yet worked with someone?

For a few months I have been charging full advance from my clients. This happened when, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 outbreak, many clients simply vanished. I had spent weeks working on their assignments and then suddenly, they dropped their projects and expressed their helplessness when I asked for even partial payments.

Since then, I’ve been asking a full advance. It’s the presence of my website and my blog that reassures them. It’s the credibility my persistent content publishing has been able to establish that makes them agree to this precondition.

As I have already mentioned above, one way is, publishing lots of case studies (in which you explain how you have actually solved problems of your customers and clients) and testimonials.

There may be some compulsions when you cannot share testimonials. For example, when I write for some clients, they want me to keep it secret that I’m writing for them because they publish the content on their name, especially when they’re publishing the content on niche websites and blogs to establish their own credibility.

I mostly serve B2B industries. I write content for websites and blogs and that in turn, generates more business for people. I’m always writing for businesses. Even when I write for individuals, they intend to use my content writing and copywriting services to get more business.

I get lots of business because of the content that I’m constantly publishing on my website and Credible Content Blog. Regularly publishing content related to content writing, copywriting and content marketing helps me maintain higher search engine rankings and this in turn makes it easier for my prospective clients to find me and hire me.

How do establish my own credibility?

In many cases, just the fact that my clients can find my website on search engines (something that they want to achieve for their own websites and blogs) reassures them that I can achieve the similar feat for their websites.

Another thing is, they can check that I have been publishing content for years. It tells them, I have a serious business. I maintain my visibility. I’m constantly sharing my knowledge and experience through my blog. I publish a newsletter. There are no negative reviews about my services on the Internet.

What else can be done to establish your credibility as a B2B entity? TopRank Marketing has recently published a blog post that shares some useful tips on establishing your credibility as a B2B enterprise. Here they are:

Always be truthful when you are presenting information on your website

Many people will tell you that what’s true, is subjective. When my clients give me information and then I use that information to present their case convincingly, I assume that the information that they are giving me, is truthful. I assume that they don’t want to publish lies on their website.

Consequently, I always have a problem when they ask me to write testimonials. On multiple occasions I have turned up with their requests for writing testimonials. I can be creative with truth, sometimes they tell me.

Although I cannot question my clients on the information that they provide me, I draw a line when they ask me to write testimonials from scratch.

It is fine to be truthful even if you have not yet done lots of work for your clients. Really, clients will appreciate this.

Associate with people who have already established their credibility

I’m not suggesting you latch onto them and neither does the above-mentioned blog post. What it means is, people who have already established their credibility, will only allow you proximity if they find you credible.

When your prospective customers and clients see you regularly interacting with people who have already established their credibility through hard work and ingenuity, 2 things happen: they easily discover you because people who have already established their credibility have a greater reach, and, some of their credibility rubs off to you.

How do you associate with people who are already authority figures in your industry?

Leave comments on their blogs. Share their content on your own blog with your own, original take. Share their content on your social media timeline. Participate in discussions.

Again, regularity is very important.

Make sure that your prospective customers and clients can find your content on right places

If most of your clients are on LinkedIn, it doesn’t make sense to focus on Instagram or Facebook. Similarly, if most of your audience spends its time on Facebook, you shouldn’t expend much energy on LinkedIn.

For B2B enterprises, it is primarily LinkedIn because it is a professional network where people are already looking for business partnerships.

Highlight the purpose of your brand

The concept of branding in itself is a purpose. People recognize your brand not because of your logo, but the purpose and the attitude that it carries. The brand purpose is the reason for your business to exist beyond making money.

As a content writer, I aspire to help you grow your business and spread your ideas when you hire me. Writing is a tool. Just like a sculptor uses chisel and hammer to carve out shapes out of rocks, I use words to create compelling messages for your business. That’s my branding message for Credible Content.

Having a very clear brand message can help you establish your credibility and trustworthiness.

Get involved with the community

Active participation in your community also enhances your credibility. Are you here just to make money or do you also want to make a positive contribution where it matters? I’m not suggesting that from a businessperson you turn into an activist, but whenever it’s possible, get involved in causes and campaigns that affect your customers and clients. Take a stand. Help people wherever you can.

Be consistent with your marketing message

Content marketing is a persistent activity. Not just because it helps you maintain your visibility, it’s also because your competitors are constantly trying to outdo you in terms of promoting themselves and publishing fresh content.

Even if you enjoy brand loyalty if you don’t maintain your visibility through fresh content, people begin to spend time consuming content from other brands. No matter how much emotional attachment you enjoy with your customers and clients, if your marketing message is not persistent, you’re going to lose the attention of your target audience and consequently, it negatively impacts your credibility.

Building credibility for your B2B enterprise is same as building your personal reputation. How do you build your personal reputation? By your conduct. By your values. By the services that you deliver. By the experience people have when they associate with you. The same applies to your business.

Content marketing means always being there

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Being there with your content

Continuing with what content marketing means…

Continued visibility can be both positive and negative but of course here we are talking about positive visibility. A great benefit of content marketing is being there when your customers and clients need you. They shouldn’t feel at sea when they need to know something about your product or service before making a purchase, or if they are facing some problem after making a purchase.

Trust cannot be built overnight no matter how hard you try. It’s not something like you hire 10 content writers who write and publish 5 blog posts everyday (giving you 50 blog posts everyday) and suddenly people begin to trust you mainly on the strength of the content you have produced on your blog. Of course if you have the money to hire 10 content writers to create lots of content and if you strategically publish that content not just on your website or blog, but also on other websites, it definitely helps set up a presence for you, but if you’re thinking of building trust among people in a short span, it is not going to happen.

Trust is built over a long period of time when you publish helpful, interactive and engaging content consistently. This is why you cannot have a 2-week content marketing plan no matter how much money you have got. Even the biggest brands talk about strategy spanning multiple years rather than multiple months (although there are seasonal and occasion-based marketing plans, but that’s different).

Would you rather do business with a friend or a total stranger? With a friend of course.

When you strategically create, publish and disseminate content, it helps you strike up conversations with people. They talk about what they like about your content, what they don’t like, what they appreciate and what they object to and what they would like to be covered. You respond accordingly by modifying existing content and creating new content. Your gesture is then appreciated. The mere fact that you have responded to them makes them happy and they talk about your response on their own blogs and social networking timelines. Then more people get to know you.

Content marketing allows you to initiate such a cycle. Once you have established such a cycle people know that whenever they need you, you’re going to be there, and this is one of the greatest assurances on the Internet where physical presence is not possible. People might be doing business with you across oceans. They cannot suddenly reach you in case they are happy or unsatisfied. Your continued visibility is reassuring. Through your content you’re continuously talking to people and telling them that look, you know what you’re doing and if they have a problem, you are always there to provide an answer. People can live with substandard products and services, what bothers them is your absence when they need you.

5 ways to creating credible content people can trust

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5 ways to build trust with content writing

5 ways to build trust with content writing

How do you write content people can trust?

Writing and publishing content is all about credibility.

Familiarity and quality make you credible.

When you deliver value consistently, people begin to trust you.

Why do you publish content on your website or blog?

You are not just simply giving vent to your innermost feelings, right?

You want to share your knowledge.

You want to tell your prospective customers and clients that you know what you’re talking about.

You want to convey that you have their best interest in your heart.

You achieve this by writing and publishing content people can trust.

It is content that people don’t just trust but also relate to it and base their critical decisions on it.

If you want them to spend money on your website, they should be able to trust you.

They need to have the confidence that they’re not being hoodwinked into purchasing something that they don’t require.

Expertise?

Yes, expertise is important, especially if you are a consultant or a skill provider like yours truly (I provide my writing services and hence, people should be able to trust that I am the expert writer their business needs).

But expertise alone doesn’t help.

Although people use logic when researching for a product or service, when they actually purchase it, they use emotion.

About emotion, I will give you a small example.

Recently I lost a complete day’s work due to some bug in OneDrive.

It so happened that due to an ongoing civil unrest, the government shutdown Internet services.

I decided to use my Internet-less time working on my book.

That day I must have written more than 2000 words.

When there is an Internet connection my documents are being synced by OneDrive in real time – my document is being saved as I type, I think every character, if I’m not wrong.

That day, since there was no Internet connection, no syncing was happening.

When the Internet services resumed at night, OneDrive synced the folder, and it overwrote the new document with an older copy from the cloud.

To rub salt on the wound, there was no help coming forth from Microsoft.

No online chat support.

Stupid AI-driven help was no help.

No response on Twitter even when I said that my recent experience may make me to shift my account to Google Drive.

The solution that I got in my email is easily available everywhere on the Internet and it doesn’t solve my problem.

I totally lost trust in the service.

For all my important documents, I purchased 200 GB from Google Drive.

It was an emotional trauma and I lost trust in OneDrive.

So, both emotion and trust play a very big role when people purchase from you.

Trust builds over time.

Whether through content writing or something else, you cannot make people trust you in a day unless something drastic takes place (you save someone from dying through a totally selfless act).

People who understand the power of content marketing (through content writing or other forms of content) know that content is published to build trust.

Yes, many of them want to use content to get more search engine traffic but once you have gotten their traffic, it is a trust that makes people buy from you.

You can get thousands of people from Google, but unless a trust you, they’re not going to buy.

This is why writing and creating credible content can help you.

Listed below are 5 way creating credible content can make people trust you.

1. Focus more on the benefits and less on the features

Every product or service has features.

Without features nothing exists.

But your customers and clients are not interested in features, they are interested in what those features can do for them.

Suppose you make a tire that does not skid on ice.

As such the feature has no value to the tire buyer.

But the benefit is, a terrible accident can be avoided due to this feature.

Google Maps may have many features.

But people use Google Maps so that they can find the easiest route to their destination and they don’t get lost when they don’t know the route.

I may be a great content writer and a convincing copywriter, but can I improve your SEO?

Can I improve your conversion rate?

Can I help you grow your business with my content writing?

If I cannot help you grow your business, no matter how great a writer I am, no matter how many books I have published, no matter how many articles in no matter how many respected publications I have published, I am of no use to you.

It doesn’t matter much whether I can store 50 songs or 5000 songs in my music streaming account, what matters is, whether I can listen to my favorite songs as easily as possible or not, in case I have saved those 5000 songs.

This is something that you need to communicate to your users.

Hence, display your features prominently, but they shouldn’t be the main focus of your content marketing. People will trust you if they can understand the benefits of working with you, or buying your product or service.

2. Write content from the perspective of your readers

When someone is reading your content, he or she should say, “Aha! This is exactly what I’m thinking. This person knows what I’m going through.”

Are people able to relate to what you’re writing?

This is very important.

If they don’t relate, they think that you don’t really understand what they need and what problems they are going through.

For example, if I want to convince you that I know how to write SEO content, I should also be able to convince you that I understand what difficulties you are facing by not being able to improve your search engine rankings.

If I’m simply harping about what a great SEO content writer I am and how I’m going to catapult you to the first position for your every keyword, you’re not going to believe me.

On the other hand if it tell you that I understand how difficult it is to improve one’s search engine rankings but I also know that rankings can be improved with quality and targeted content and publishing it regularly, you will at least give me a patient hearing.

After that, you will go through my webpages and blog posts and see how I regularly talk about and what I know about SEO content writing and copywriting and how I have been helping my clients improve your search engine rankings.

This way, you will be able to trust me.

3. Write and publish content regularly

There are both practical and logical reasons for publishing content regularly.

People will trust you if they receive valuable content from you on an ongoing basis.

They can receive your content via email or via social media updates.

They can also find your content using search engines.

They can use Amazon Echo or Google Assistant to find your content.

The more content people find from you, the more they trust you.

Trust depends a lot on a sense of familiarity.

Familiarity with positive association.

If you become a part of their regular lives as a nuisance (posting junk content or spamming their inboxes), they will not do business with you and they will also tell other people not to do business with you.

Hence regularity, and positive association, keep these in mind.

This is logical reason.

The practical reason is, your competitors, at least those who know the power of content marketing, and who are serious about maintaining their search engine rankings, are constantly out publishing you.

If you publish one blog post every month, they publish two.

If you publish two, they publish four, if you publish four, they publish eight, and this goes on.

And they’re not just competing with you, they are also competing with themselves.

Hence, if you have 20 worthy competitors (supposing) even if they are not competing with you, they are competing with each other and consequently, constantly injecting new, fresh content into the web in general and search engines in particular.

The search engines like Google aren’t just crawling and indexing content from your niche.

They are also crawling and indexing content from related niches and ranking this content above your content.

When you want to improve your search engine rankings for your targeted keywords, you are competing with thousands of links.

If people cannot find your content through organic SEO improvement, it will be difficult for them to come to your website and begin to trust you.

A lot of my clients want to work with me simply because they can easily find me on Google and they would like me to replicate the same results for their own business.

4. Focus on quality and authority, and not on quantity

The debate between quality and quantity is constantly going on in terms of how much content you should publish.

The more content you can publish, the better it is, but when it comes to choosing, if you have limited resources and time and you have to choose between quality and quantity, you must go with quality.

It is your quality content that makes people trust you, not quantity.

One blog post that is useful is far better than 100 blog posts that don’t serve any purpose but simply improve your search engine rankings.

I regularly come across clients who want to improve their search engine rankings no matter what.

They are obsessed about getting more people to their websites, paying little attention to how many among those actually do business with them.

Traffic doesn’t get you business, quality content does.

Just because someone is on your website doesn’t mean he or she is going to buy from you.

To buy from you, he or she needs to trust you.

For them to trust you, you should be worthy of their trust.

You cannot be worthy of their trust by publishing lousy content.

5. Address the questions in your readers’ minds

We all have this tendency to sidestep inconvenient questions.

When people are evaluating your product or service, they will have many doubts, apprehensions and questions.

They may not have these doubts, apprehensions and questions if you offer your product or service for free because then, aside from the time they will be spending using your product or service, they won’t have much stake.

But the moment you ask them to spend some money, they would like to know everything under the sun, which is natural, because, under similar situation, you would also do the same thing.

You will help people trust you better if you address most of their fears and apprehensions through your content.

Instead of calling you or writing you an email, people try to find the answers to their questions on your website.

They may use your search box.

They may go through your blog posts.

They may go through your FAQs section.

They may also look up your social media and social networking profiles like LinkedIn and Facebook.

If they can find the answers they are looking for right on your website, they will feel reassured.

It will convey to them that you are not afraid of handling difficult questions.

For example, before hiring my SEO content writing services, you may like to know whether I will really be able to improve your rankings?

This is a difficult question to answer because one’s rankings do not depend on a single factor.

There is an array of factors that collectively influence your search engine rankings and high-quality content underpins your entire content marketing and SEO strategy.

On multiple blog posts and webpages, I have described that your content alone – no matter how great its quality is – doesn’t decide your SEO although it does have a big impact.

Your SEO depends on the age of your domain, the density of high-quality content, the content publishing frequency, the topics that you have so far covered, the interlinking of the various sections, the level of optimization of your source code, and the number of authoritative websites linking back to you, aside from many other known and unknown factors.

Hence, by the time a client who has gone through my website and blog contacts me, he or she knows that I will be providing high-quality content that will be fully search engine optimized and on the strength of this content, further SEO is to be built.

Most of the people already know that there are many factors that influence one’s search engine rankings but when I sincerely tell them, it helps them trust me.

The sole purpose of creating content for your website and blog is to increase your credibility in front of your present and prospective customers and clients.

It’s no use writing content to increase your search engine visibility while having inferior content on your website because eventually people make buying decisions when your content succeeds in convincing them, that they should trust you.