6-27-2016, Entrepreneur.com -- You work hard to get traffic to your website. You pay for advertising. You optimize for the search engines. You work it on social media.

And it pays off! Traffic comes. People arrive. They look at what you have to offer. And -- they hesitate.

It takes just a moment’s hesitation to create doubt. In that moment, you can lose a customer. They find you -- but do they trust you?

In the real world, people do business face to face. They meet the waitress, the sales clerk, the serviceman. They make a judgment call instinctively as to whether they like you, whether they trust you and whether they want to do business with you.

Does your website say “Trust me!" so that a customer never doubts? Let’s consider three types of business websites:

• Local business: Your website is an extension of a real business, where you come face to face with your customers in the flesh (store, theatre, trades).
• Service business: You interact with your customers, but not always in the same city (accountant, coach, translator).
• Ecommerce: Your entire process is automated. If all your customers were pink fairy armadillos, you would never know. (Those are real animals, by the way, although rarely seen on ecommerce websites).

Whichever type of businesses you run, ask yourself the following questions.

1. Can customers visualize me?

If they can’t meet you in person, the next best thing is to see you. A picture of the business owner, with his or her name, goes a long way. A quote beneath the picture about “quality” or how you “love customers” goes even further. A video message from the owner is best.  Video is more tangible, almost like meeting you. When I redesigned my website, it's the first thing I added.

Check out the video on the home page of a local contractor's website. There is something special about this screenshot. Keep reading.

If not a video, how about photos of the whole team, as The Pike Brewing Company has. You'll see the same approach across the pages of my website. The Great Lakes Brewing Company shows the "Two Irish brothers" who founded the company, when telling their story.

Which type of website most needs a real, live person up front?  Ecommerce, of course.  The more intangible the business, the more important to show real people behind it.

2. Can customers visualize my business?

If they can’t walk up to your counter, at least they can see that you have a real address.  That boosts trust right away. A real address means that you are less likely to be a fly-by-night scammer. Even better, post a picture of your place of business 

Which type of website most needs to show a real location? You guessed it: ecommerce.  The more virtual the business is, the more important to show that it is real. This business made sure that customers can contact them in every way possible:

Read the rest of the story HERE.