Every day, we trust people we’ve never met—drivers, service providers, even strangers online. In business, trust works the same way: clients want to know they can rely on you before they pick up the phone or send an email.
Your website is often the first place people check. It needs to communicate reliability, professionalism, and credibility. In this article, I’ll show you how to write and design a website that inspires trust and reassures prospective clients.
How are you signalling to people that they can trust you and your business?
People do business with people they trust.
Makes sense, right?
We all value our time, our money, and our reputation. We don’t want to work with people who don’t give us the right trust signals.
I’ve been enjoying Rachel Botsman’s discussions around trust. Rachel is an author, speaker, and a world-renowned expert on trust and technology and what this means for life, work and how we do business. Her TED talk, “The currency of the new economy is trust,” discusses how technology has enabled many new businesses to build their models on trust. Think eBay, Airbnb and Uber.
Even if your business isn’t quite as tech-dependent as these examples, most people have a website to promote their business.
The question of trust and AI
In her recent commentary on AI, she highlights an important distinction: when we talk about “trust” in technology, we’re often really discussing risk—words like safety, compliance, and security dominate the conversation.
Botsman explores how approaching challenges through a trust lens rather than a risk lens can change the way we think about leadership, innovation, and decision-making. While your website isn’t AI, the lesson is the same: building genuine trust—through clarity, transparency, and credibility—matters more than simply avoiding risk.
One of the main tasks of your marketing is to help people know, trust and like you.
The trust process starts with your website
For most organisations, their website is where they tell clients and prospects what they do and how they deliver value.
But even if you don’t rely on your website for actual leads or sales, it’s often the first place people go to check you out.
People will head to your website to:
- See if you know what you’re talking about
- Check on your qualifications and experience
- Find out what other people have said about you
They want to know whether you can understand their challenges.
They want reassurance that they can trust you before they email you or pick up the phone.
According to article in Forbes magazine, these are the six building blocks of trust:
- Reliability and dependability
- Transparency
- Competency
- Sincerity, Authenticity and Congruency
- Fairness
- Openness and Vulnerability
So, how do these relate to the design of your website?
How to design your website to help you earn the trust of visitors
Here are 7 ways to display trust on your website:
- Professional, responsive web design – Your website should look professional, feature an appealing design, and clearly describe your services. It’s essential that your website also looks good on mobile devices. Check that your website designer has used a responsive design.
- Clear, approachable website copy: The words on your website should clearly describe how you can help your clients. Use language that’s approachable, yet professional. Your ‘About us’ section is really all about how you can help them, not about how proud you are that your company is 100 years old.
- Share client stories through case studies—people relate to other people’s stories, so use case studies. They’re an excellent way of telling a story about how you’ve helped someone.
- Use testimonials and reviews – they leave a positive ‘reputation trail’ that will reassure people that you’re a reliable and skilled provider. If you can include video testimonials, even better.
- Educate your audience with helpful content—blog articles or e-books that showcase your expertise and offer value rather than a hard sell help you build credibility. Plus, it will give prospective clients confidence that you’re the right person for the job.
- Make contact easy and accessible – accessibility is an important first step in establishing any business relationship. You might include an obligation-free offer as a first step towards commitment.
- Ensure security for online transactions – If your business involves online transactions, make sure you’ve got the security in place to reassure people that their credit card and personal details are safe.
It’s worth following Rachel Botsman on her website to learn about her latest thoughts on trust.
Want your website to inspire trust and confidence in your clients? Let’s create copy that turns visitors into loyal customers. Get in touch today.
