How to position yourself as an authority and gain the trust of your audience
To influence the behaviour of your prospective buyers on your website, you need to position yourself as an authority who can honestly and transparently address every question or fear they may have. Indeed I have been recommending an FAQ page to all my clients for a few years now, but there are other ways of presenting useful, helpful information to your prospects, such as your blog, vlog, ebooks, buyers guides and educational videos.
It's important to think about all the various questions that you have every been asked my a prospective customer and to provide the answers from their point of view, not yours!
The goal is be the most trusted source of information about your area of expertise on the internet. Talk openly about all the pros and cons of your products and services. Why they are great but also why they might not suit everyone. After all, you don’t want to sell to everyone and it’s unreasonable to expect that you will attract everyone.
Your website content is your greatest sales tool. Think about it, it can reach millions of people across the globe, working for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, forever! Unlike an online advert which will disappear as soon as you stop paying for it, your website content is always there, always searchable and findable by consumers and the search engines alike. Also, unlike a salesperson, it will never leave you to go and work for someone else!
What topics should you address on your website?
As I’ve said, think about all the questions you have ever been asked about your product or service. The next time you have someone enquiring on the phone or maybe as part of a discovery call, take note of their questions and ensure that the answer is somewhere on your website. Not because you don’t want people to pick up the phone to call you but because the more information you provide from the outset, the more helpful you are to your prospects as they search online for answers to their problems. This will position you as a helpful guide but will also help people decide for themselves if you are a good fit or a bad fit for them. This saves everyone time and time is money!
There are a few topics that I rarely see addressed on websites and yet which are crucial to gaining the trust and admiration of your readers.
Topic No.1 – Pricing
Let me tell you a story. I moved house about three months ago and am still living out of boxes. Well, I am dressing out of boxes! Three months in and I still have no wardrobes for my bedroom. IKEA have ongoing supply-chain issues and the challenge of sourcing alternative fitted wardrobes has been an exercise in frustration.
Why? Because none of the wardrobe-sellers online include prices on their website. It drives me nuts! They all have these lovely photos of swanky looking bedrooms with parquet floors, beautiful soft furnishings and elegant wardrobes...but I have no idea what it's going to cost. Also, most of them are located in the back of beyond so it's not like I can just nip in and ask them for a price when I'm out and about. This is why three months later, I still have no wardrobes.
Do you include your prices on your website? Stats show that less than 10% of businesses do. And what does that lead to? Frustration! Contrary to popular belief, including your prices does not scare prospects away (they are likely to leave your site anyway, in frustration!), it educates them so they can discover for themselves if your services are a good fit for them.
But my prices are not set, each project or customer is different!
I hear you, this applies to my work too. But you don’t have to be precise, but give your potential customers an idea of what they are getting into financially if they buy from you.
Explain the variables that affect price, don’t assume that your customers are stupid and don’t understand that prices aren’t always set in stone. As consumers in 2022 we expect to find the answers to all our questions on the internet and if we don’t find them, we leave.
What about the competition?
This is another excuse often given for not including pricing on websites. Trust me, your competition already know what you are charging and in any case, they are not your customers! And if you are only competing on price, I would suggest you review your positioning so that you can find your voice to explain the other ways in which you stand out in your field.
TOPIC 2 - Problems!
Let’s say you teach yoga and a prospective customer calls you to find out about your classes and the types of yoga you teach. You get on well, they like you and they are tempted to attend one of your sessions. In the meantime they meet their friend who says ‘Yoga? But I thought you wanted to get lose weight! Yoga isn’t going to help you lose weight, you need to join an aerobics class instead!”
What’s the prospect going to do next? They are likely to go back onto Google and type in something like “Will Yoga make me fit?” or “Is aerobics better for me than yoga?”
So, you can allow this person to go looking for this info themselves (and possibly find inaccurate information) or you can address these issues/perceived issues on your own website. For example you could write a blog post and explain that Yoga may not be for you if you want to lose weight quickly and speed up your metabolism but if you are looking for an activity that improves control, balance and stability, Yoga might be the perfect exercise for you. Apologies if this is incorrect information, I am not a yoga expert! But you get my point.
TOPIC 3 - Versus and Comparisons
Consumers love comparisons – we love to know the best and the worst about everything, and everything in between and we look for these comparisons on the internet. So you can address these too on your website. Again with your teacher hat on, you can write articles comparing your product/service to a similar product or service, giving honest unbiased information. The goal is not to convince your reader that your product is better, to sell to them. No, you want to be a trusted source of information. Your prospects will reward you for your honesty. And what if they decide that the other product or service suits them better? That’s fine, you have avoided a wasted phonecall or email with someone who is not the right customer for you.
Remember, digital is the great equalizer. We all have access to the same world wide web, whether they are a solo-preneur or a large corporation. Consumers are all over the web, looking for answers. Listen to your buyers or you will get left behind.
Organising your content for searchability
You might be wondering what other topics you can address on your website once you have exhausted all the questions your customers or prospects might be asking themselves. The stats show that there are certain categories of content that rank the most highly, or that people love to read the most. I have addressed some of them above, particularly comparisons and x versus y. Here are some other popular categories of blog/article/YouTube video/ebook that do very well:
Tutorials and Beginner Guides
Dreaming of starting a YouTube Channel? Do this first!
How to record a tutorial using Loom
Comparisons and Reviews
An honest review of Dublin’s biggest tourist attractions
LinkedIn versus Twitter, Which one is better?
Inspirational & Motivational Content
10 ways to treat yourself when you have no money
How to handle/deal with x when you are y (how to handle big gatherings when you are an introvert)
Tips & Tricks
5 ways to make your next holiday a success
The easiest thing you can do to triple your chances of losing weight before summer
Why making a will matters.
You can use each of these categories to address the various topics in your content pillars. You content pillars are the main services/products/fields that you want to be known for and which are going to be the focus of your content. Within each pillar you may have sub-topics that relate to the overall pillar and again you can talk about these using the suggested categories above. What’s important is to put yourself in your ideal customer’s shoes and write/speak about what matters to them and what can help them answer their questions/change their life/solve their problems.
