There’s no doubt trust is critical to business success. We could cite a ton of studies and statistics to back that up, but all you need to do is consider your own purchasing decisions to know it’s true.
The concept of trust is universal. When a company, brand or nonprofit organization is trusted, it stands a far better chance of achieving success and growth than a similar company that’s on shaky ground in the trust department – price points be damned.
Content is a powerful way to earn your audience’s trust – but only if you do it right. Trust, or the desire to earn trust, should be at the core of any content you publish.
So, how can you earn your audience’s trust with content? Here are a few proven strategies.
Create value
So much content is written to satisfy what people think search engines want, but the majority (if not all) of that content is crap. Seriously. If all you’re doing is writing for keywords, you’re not giving your audience value. Moreover, you’re not helping your business.
Why? Because gaming the search engines is short-sighted. Google knows what you’re doing, and you’re going to end up being penalized. That means all the money you’ve invested in SEO will go down the drain.
Some SEO companies have a fantastic (if unscrupulous) business model: they get paid well for short-term results, knowing full well those high rankings could eventually crash and you’ll need to keep paying them to fix it.
We’re not saying SEO is bad; it certainly makes sense to include keyword-based context. Still, the best long-term strategy is to focus on creating valuable content your audience can use to achieve their goals, whether those goals are to discover the best product, learn a new skill or change the world.
When your content is valuable, your audience will take notice. And Google will take notice, too, because your content will be read and shared. It will be popular, which Google will naturally interpret as being valuable – and by proving your value, you’ll earn rankings that stick even when the algorithm changes.
Be accurate and accountable
Don’t make bogus claims, and don’t pretend to be the solution to everything, always. Have you ever seen an article that lists a ton of statistics without sources? How can you trust that?
Accuracy matters. If you’re going to make a statement, be prepared to back it up; and if you’re going to list statistics, cite your sources. Not only that, but you should be prepared to offer context on those statistics, rather than simply twisting numbers to serve your purpose.
Sometimes, you might have to admit your company isn’t the best at something. Know what? People will trust you more for it, and that will pay huge dividends when you can confidently say your company is a great solution for a different problem.
Accountability is likewise critical. List your name – not your brand – as the author of your article. Give people a way to contact your writing team. It’s easy to write anything you want if you’re hiding behind a brand, but putting your name on your work forces accountability. And when you’re accountable, people are more likely to trust you.
Be real
Use real-world examples to illustrate your points. Case studies are popular ways to do this, but simply explaining how you helped a customer solve a real world problem – or just illustrating that problem – is a great way to find solidarity with your audience. Understand their needs, be one of them, then create content that caters to their livelihoods.
When you draw on real life experience, it’s easy for your audience to connect with you. That connection, in turn, leads to trust; which then leads to long-term customer relationships.
Keep it simple
During the literary feud between William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, Faulkner criticized Hemingway’s simple prose.
Hemingway’s famous response?
“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
You may be a literary genius, but unless your audience is partial to words like “sesquipedalian” you’re better off sticking to simplicity. There are plenty of reasons to keep it simple, and not because your audience isn’t capable of digesting heavy literature. Short attention spans, a desire to retrieve information quickly and an abundance of competing content are all good reasons to keep it simple. You should strive to craft a usable resource, not a thesis.
Give your audience the information they want quickly, and they’ll trust you as the resource they’ve been seeking.
Add visual flow
A well-designed blog is more attractive and more credible. Compelling visuals help drive your points home and make your content easy to scan.
Ask yourself this: when you’ve finished writing an article, can you scan through and understand what the content is about in ten seconds? If not, you should incorporate more descriptive headlines, call-outs, charts, images and other visual components to make your content easy to digest at a glance. Putting in the extra effort makes your work more credible, and you more trustworthy.
These are just a few ways you can craft content your audience trusts. Though it might take a little more time to create credible content, the trust it earns is worth many times more than the effort required to produce it.