All businesses have to earn the trust of their target audience or market. Earning trust helps increase conversions, gain valuable leads, and create loyal customers. However, it is tough to gain the trust of the audience and make them believe in the brand’s values.
This is where trust signals enter the story. In the vastness of the digital marketing world, establishing trust is important for a website’s success. As a construction business owner, you need to establish trust with your target customers. And the very first step you can do is to deeply understand these trust signals and how you can integrate them into your construction marketing strategy.
In this blog post, we will discuss trust signals, their definitions, and their many benefits. Ultimately, we will discuss seven trust signals you need to embed on your site as soon as possible.
So, What are Trust Signals?
To put it simply, trust signals are elements that are typically displayed on most websites to help customers feel secure in their decision to buy a specific product or service or patronize a certain business. In addition, they are subtle indicators, both functional and visual, that reassure web visitors about the authenticity and reliability of your (construction) content.
Trust signals can vary widely in form. However, they all perform the same role – making prospective customers feel better about your construction brand and doing business with your company. Ultimately, trust signals are an important element of your conversion rate optimization.
Benefits of Trust Signals
Embedding trust signals on your construction website offers strong and profitable benefits for your online presence. In other words, it builds a strong brand awareness and reputation, leading to continuous success in the competitive digital marketing world.
- Increased conversions: Any customer who believes in a business’s reliability and credibility is more likely to make a purchase or convert. Trust signals, like positive reviews, transparent policies, and payment options, act as catalysts for establishing this confidence in potential customers, ultimately resulting in higher conversion rates.
- Enhanced brand reputation: Establishing a strong foundation of trust will produce long-term benefits. Trust signals not only build a solid brand reputation but also help attract and retain your construction clients who value reliability and authenticity. This foundation of trust serves as a pillar for fostering long-lasting relationships and driving success in your construction business.
- Improved SEO performance: Most search engines prioritize user-centric content, which means that some elements like relevant information and user experience play a vital role in determining your search ranking. This is why it is important to focus on creating content that resonates well with your users and building trust signals simultaneously. As a result, it strongly influences your position in search results.
- Enhanced user experience: Beyond the impact on conversions, trust signals elevate the overall user experience effortlessly. In a digital world saturated with tons of options, any user will opt for websites that not only offer valuable content but also create a sense of reliability and security. Trust signals will always deliver a seamless and positive user experience, fostering customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Trust Signals to Embed in Your Website
Some trust signals you can see today are easily recognizable, whereas others are more subtly shown. So, there are many different types of trust signals. But the following below are the appropriate ones you can embed to your construction website:
1. Social proof trust signals
The unstoppable rise of social media brings with it many things. Social proof as a trust signal is one of them and its growth continues to rise as well. This category of trust signal includes word-of-mouth recommendations from industry experts and satisfied customers, to client’s feedback in the website.
Social proof as a trust signal is proven to be powerfully persuasive to the audience. Your target potential clients find great reviews, positive feedback, and general positivity about your construction brand directly from “real people.”
2. Trust by association trust signals
This trust signal is broad and includes other types of trust signal, which can help your prospects feel secured when doing business with you.
The well-known brands you are going to put on your construction website are these trust signals. This simply implies that your brand proves its trustworthiness because other brands are associated with you. Trust by association is particularly very common among start-up companies that are still growing. The association with these popular and trusted brands, reassure your prospective clients that they are making the right decision to make partner with you.
3. Industry awards
Industry awards boost trust by showing your website visitors that other experts and trusted sources think highly of you. These awards will show your competency and how much you can deliver what you have promised them.
If you do list an award and include it on your construction website, make sure it is relevant to your business. You can also feature endorsements and reviews from your colleagues.
4. Name, Address, and Phone (NAP)
You probably came across with NAP when you focus on Local SEO. NAP is crucial as it helps search engines understand your business location and company identity. More so, if you have this present in your construction website, then you get yourself a strong trust signal.
Make sure you add your business name, address, and phone details accurately across your website pages. The common places you can add this information are in the footer or on the contact page. Aside from your NAP details, you can also include your email address.
Finally, make sure all information matches accurately when you try to add your NAP elsewhere, like in directories or in your GMB profile.
5. Verified customer reviews
Surveys shows that 95% of consumers read online reviews before they navigate through their buying decision and 58% say they would pay more for the products of a brand with good reviews.
So, if your business received a great customer feedback, shout about it! Your potential customers rely on other customer’s honesty.
Customer reviews are another strong trust signal that you can embed on your website. They affect your company’s reputation and the general public’s view of your service offerings. Positive reviews can improve your company’s overall social credibility and will strongly leave a positive impression on your potential customers.
Make it a goal to earn five-star reviews for your website. But what if someone leaves a bad review? That’s totally fine because you cannot please everyone with your construction service. But make sure to learn from it and take time to assess what went bad with your service.
6. SSL Certificates and Data Protection
Making sure that your construction website has an SSL certificate is an effective way to show your potential customers that any information you offer is secure. You can clearly see this on other websites in the address bar, which usually contains a small lock, implying that the site has an SSL certificate.
SSL, short for Secure Socket Layer, helps in verifying to servers that you are who you say you are. Make sure to have SSL on your website. Having this trust signal will make it a lot easier for you to earn the trust of your customers because they know you are doing your due diligence when it comes to data protection.
7. SEO trust signals
It would be completely unfair if we did not at least mention SEO trust signals. Like the trust signals we already mentioned and discussed above, trust signals for SEO are equally important and have a role to play in your website.
Let’s just say that Google is somehow like customer. SEO trust signals will show Google the websites that have expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (EAT). Google, on the other hand, prioritizes high-EAT pages on the search results. While EAT is not a ranking factor technically, Google will still reward web pages with EAT with higher rankings.
Here are a few things you can do to increase EAT on your page:
- Ensure your construction brand has verified Google properties: For instance, being verified on Google My Business, is key for local business.
- Maintain a strong social media presence: This generally includes creating a company page on some of the most popular social media platforms. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram are the most popular channels these days.
- Improve other Google ranking factors: Other important Google ranking factors you need to focus as well include website structure, domain authority, mobile-friendliness, high-quality content, and more.
Does Your Construction Website Have Trust Signals?
Creating a website for your business that will make an unforgettable impression on your client base is important. Trust signals are key to a strong impression! However, the approach to trust signals is multi-faceted and requires creativity and strategy. If you think you do not have these skills, then partnering to an agency is the only right thing to do!
We are ConstructionMarketing.io, a reputable digital marketing company ready to assist you with your marketing needs. We offer a range of online marketing solutions – from SEO service, email marketing, to social media management, content creation, PPC, and more.
Website design is one of our specializations. We are looking for ways to improve your website as a whole. In fact, we offer a free website health check for all our clients, which includes examining your website’s trust signals.
Call us now! Let’s start winning over the trust and interest of your website visitors.