This is a guest post by Lee Ka Hoong from BloggingWP.
Of late, owning a website or blog is not simple or easier compared to how it was a few years back. Previously a good and attractive design of a ‘*.com’ domain caught attention easily. Webmaster neither had a need to prove its quality nor demonstrate the reason for providing solution to everyday problems.
Blogging, today has invaded greatly into the field of networking. Bloggers are interested in building relationship with their visitors and budding customers. These days, the trend has changed such that visitors and customers are interested in knowing the person behind the blog before they read the content of it. The blogger has to interact and relate with the readers to meet their confidence or trust.
Being a blogger for the past few years and gaining experience, I have noticed some means that builds trustworthiness among the visitors. Some of them are very easy to be implemented whereas some others require effort and time.
However, by executing some of these techniques, we can see the difference.
1. About Me
As a blogger, the first essential step would be to let the visitors know who you are! The ‘About me’ page should be clearly visible and easily assessable. It should not be concealed or bloated out. It is better if there are links to the ‘About Me’ page along the sidebars and below every blog post.
Another suggestion for the blogger would be to include some pictures and videos of yours. This would help the readers trust on you and not on the posts alone.
Read: How To Create A Great About Me Page For Your Blog
2. Organize Get-Together
Another way to build confidence among the readers of the blog is to pick a few of the regular visitors and people of expertise from your blog and interact with them. This can be done by organizing get-together.
As a start-up, it can be done in a smaller level but once the online business grows, mega events can be organized. Attending events conducted by other bloggers will also help in building relationships. This would also pull in more customers and an avenue to partner with expert people on the content of your blog.
3. Interactive Sessions
Interactive sessions like Q&A, polls, consultant services etc. is another way to build a trustworthy relationship with the visitors. This not only will help to increase the traffic to the blog but also will let the regular visitors be aware of the professional expertise and knowledge you have.
4. Freebies
There are many things that can be offered for free – e-books, coupons, designs, themes, services etc… As most of the people like to get free things, offering some freebies would make the people realize that you are generous too. This will also help in promoting yourself and increase the subscribers count.
5. Blogging Something Personal
Writing about the personal in the blog would further help one in gaining confidence among visitors. Such posts would not only take the about me page even further but it is also fun to read.
They may not convey the area of expertise of your blog, but will for sure help to build personal relationship with bloggers. Blogging about summer holidays or breakfast is cool to read and there is no need to be worried or shy about it.
However more of personal blogging is also not advisable.
6. Use Social Media
It is a well-known fact that in the internet world, most of the people are addicted to social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter etc… Linking your website along with these networking sites in an innovative and wise way will have its own payback.
7. Responding To Visitors Comments And Emails
Another important factor that builds trust is the way you respond to the comments people leave on the blog. It is important to answer their queries and share opinions about the comments they give. This would encourage not only the visitor who shared the comment but also other visitors with an idea that the blog owner observes and notes their opinions. Alternatively you can also email them directly.
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I must admit. Building trust is not that easy sometimes. Though you just have to be real and honest and I also think it takes time to build one. This article is exactly what I have been looking for. Tips are great and absolutely helpful. I like the freebie part! 😀
@elle,
It’s not an easy job in building trust from your readers, it can takes you few months or years. What you can do in the beginning is to write quality and unique content that would help to solve their problems, interact with your readers and solve their problems. Just be yourself and you can be success!
Nice post Lee, in my opinion the best way to build trust with your readers is networking with other bloggers on your niche and writing regular guest posts on relevant high quality blogs, in that way people who are interested in your niche are probably readers of these blogs and if they see your name in these blogs they will think about you as an expert on your field and will certainly want to read more from you on your blog
@Kostas,
Yes, keep interacting with other bloggers and your readers is the best way to build trust, and you build a strong community within your niche, that would definitely help your blog in a long run basis.
Depending on the topic, Blogging something Personal can be dangerous.
Most bloggers try to avoid the “personal” items. What types of things would you class as “personal” that would build trust?
@Barry Wheeler,
Yeap, you can blog about personal but not too detail, people who have “intention” may plan something to kidnap you. “Personal” items I mentioned would be something that you experience in your day life and what you can relate it to your blogging, that would be interesting. 😀
You definitely have to build trust with your readers and visitors. Whenever I purchase a product on a website, I am always looking to see if its a trustworthy source. Its no different for bloggers, its the same type of trust that needs to be there.
-Jean
@Jean,
You are right Jean, we always refer to someone who can be trusted and he must be someone who is well known in the market, and we will follow what they said. If you’re going to be one of the affiliate marketer and selling your own product, building trust from your readers is what you must do in the beginning.
All points are valid. Communication always creates attraction and clear doubts. It is the duty of blogger to dish up a clean view of his professional personality so that people belonging to his niche stay at his blog and write creative comments on his post.In this way an environment of research establishes.
This gives benefits to a blogger as well as a visitor.Visitor get links and because of quality comments his site is also enlisted in organic searches.
@Jamal,
You’re right, communication and interaction with readers play an important role in building trust from readers, this is what most of the successful bloggers did in the past and now. Sushant is one of the successful bloggers and he does well in communication with readers.
Nice tips. I’ve been doing everything except organizing a get together. I have a gaming forum where I’ve done that, never for my blogs though.
Also the freebies part – Have done it as part of my forum but never my blogs. Have to see what I can give out without issues anywhere.
@Nazmus,
It’s the same no matter where you do it either blog or forum, it’s the same formula. As long as you interact with your readers and get together, you can build trust from your readers anywhere.
Great tips Lee.
I find posting really personal posts once in a while helps termundelsy in regards to establishing trust. Once in a while publish a post about you, your life, your flaws, mistakes and successes. It makes you more human to the readers and not a “cold blooded robot”.
@Satrap,
Yes, as I said, you may write something about your personal life and relates it to your blogging, that would be more interesting. It goes same to school life, if you teacher keep teaching you theory and technical knowledge without telling some personal story and relates it to the teaching, that would be kinda boring.
I have an ‘About me’ page but it sucks. I’m going to follow your link and see if it can give me a few tips for improvment.
I totally agree about responding to comments and emails. I’ve heard the agruement that it exagerates the comment numbers but I think responding to your visitors should take priority over worring about comment numbers.
We’ve all noticed that most of the super successful bloggers never enter the comment discussion on their posts. I guess at that stage it doesn’t matter anymore, momentum keeps them going, but it would be nice to see interaction from the blog owner or post author once in awhile.
@Brian,
Responding to comments and emails would be a plus and booster in building healthy relationship. Some super successful bloggers don’t reply your comment or email at all, but some will really do, for example Daniel Scocco and Darren Rowse, they do reply my email in short time whenever I ask question. This makes me sticking to their blogs all the time.
Interacting with your readers is the main formula for building trust. It can be accompalished by Replying to every comment on our blog and building a social presence. Nice post.
@Garish,
Absolutely! That would be great if you could reply every comments on your blog, but if you don’t have time, at least you reply 80% of them, that’s more than enough. At least you show your readers that you’re not dead, you’re actually alive and like to discuss the topic with your readers.
Hello Lee
7. Responding To Visitors Comments And Emails – I agree with this point. Responding readers comment and emails means you interacting with them, when you answer email give your reader good first impression. With that you can build trust and credibility online.
@neo,
Absolutely neo. When you reply comment and email from your reader, your readers will appreciate your reply. They will feel the differences you and other bloggers because not all bloggers reply email and comment from their readers. That would help a lot in building trust if you can do that.