Transparency and Trust Go Hand in Hand
One of the best ways to build trustworthiness amongst your readership is to be transparent. Transparency and building trust are not new topic of conversation in the blogosphere. Bloggers like Pat Flynn and Darren Rowse talk about it often. But it doesn’t hurt to cover it from perhaps a different angle.
Transparency helps your readers put a face to the name. It builds their confidence in you, the writer, in you the affiliate marketer, in you the eBook seller, in you the list builder.
Imagine for a moment, you’re walking down the street and in the shadows you see a figure. He or she is speaking to you and they are trying to sell you some kind of merchandise. Would you even stand there to listen to the pitch or would you turn tail and run. Personally, I would run. No chance I’m doing business with that blog.
Now imagine the same street, the same person only this time the street lamp is casting its light on their face and you can see who they are. You can see their eyes, now you have a better sense of with whom you are speaking. You are confident that what they are saying is worth listening to, at least. Granted you may need to see this person around a few more time, preferably in the same place at the same time. Just to see if they are consistent in what they are saying and selling. But you would be less reluctant to invest time and money. You might possibly see yourself doing business with this blog in the future.
We should take this same scenario and apply it to our blog. If we do not have a clear image of ourselves and an About page on our blog then we are simply doing nothing more than lurking in the shadows. And that my friends will cause many of your readers and potential consumers to turn around and click away from your blog.
I realize some bloggers prefer to remain anonymous and that’s okay. But, if you truly want to connect with your readers you will need to step out of the dark.
In conclusion:
Trust is paramount to the success of any business online and off. So bring yourself out into the light. Let your readers see you and get to know you. That is the only way to build genuine rapport.
You do want your readers to trust you, don’t you? What are some other ways to build trust? Please share your opinions in the comments.
Photo credit: Icatching /CC BY-SA 2.0
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