Am I saying you can’t create a business or a blog unless you are a passionate fan of the topic? Am I claiming it’s not possible to be successful with a business you don’t know all the ins and outs of?
Not at all. It is fine to go a detached route but if you’re going to do that, then you still have to have passion and care for what you’re doing. You need to respect the audience and the niche and you need to invest in the idea. Investing in the idea is going to mean spending money and time on it and finding other passionate people to work with.
In other words, you need to build a team. That means finding talented artists and designers to create the website, it means finding a talented writer who is passionate about the specific topic you’ve chosen and it means investing lots of money into the site that you want to build.
Doing this is what’s going to make the site look professional and that in turn is what will build the trust.
For instance, to create the best possible brand you need to make sure you have the best possible logo. That does not mean doing it yourself unless you happen to be a professional designer. It means being involved in the design process and having input over what you want it to look like, but it also means hiring someone who is a professional logo designer and who has the experience and the tools to make something amazing.
There is a huge difference between going to a site that has a crisp logo that really speaks volumes as to what the site is about and who it is for, versus visiting a site that looks grainy as though an amateur made it in MSPaint!
So along with your rebranding and finding the right mission statement, the other thing you need to do is to invest a little money. Why not take out a PayPal Business Loan if you need the funds? Then just invest that money into your site and make sure it looks truly polished. Compare it with the site owned by your top competitor and ask yourself if it is genuinely as good quality. If not? Back to the drawing board.
The objective now is that when someone lands on your site they should instantly see that you are doing something new and interesting, that you are highly professional and that you have the funds and the resources to do things well. After all, if you can’t design a website to have high quality images and a great layout, why would someone trust you to produce a good product or service for them?
What are some other ways to add polish and give your site that trustworthy, professional sheen?
One good option is to invest in some quality video production. A high quality video has the potential to make a massive impact and to get people to sign up to a mailing list or just decide that they are interested in your brand and want to learn more.
That’s because a video can bring someone in and engage them in a way that few other types of media can. But at the same time, when you create a high quality video, people can see the budget. If it is filmed in HD, if it uses professional editing and if it has a smart jingle at the start, great bottom thirds… all of this will create the feeling that the audience is watching something created by a serious player in the niche. This is something that a kid in his Mum’s basement could not produce and therefore it is something that instantly increases trust.
As for the site design, at this point this needs to be mobile friendly. It needs to load quickly and it needs to make it incredibly easy for someone to get around, to make bookings or to order products. Imagine that they’re in the queue at an airport and they want to browse your site in the queue on their mobile with one hand. How is that experience?
Because if your site isn’t absolutely perfectly pleasant to use, then you WILL lose interest and customers.
This is also when you need to start adding social media pages. These give your visitors more ways to become followers once they’re impressed with your brand and your production values. But it’s not just about having those social media accounts, it’s about making sure that they have the same cohesive design and sensibilities that the rest of your brand does. That means your Instagram, Twitter and Facebook should all have the same name and URL as your site. If your site is ‘www.fitnesssite.com’ then that means your Facebook should be ‘www.facebook.com/fitnesssite’. This doesn’t just make it easier for people to find you: it presents a united, cohesive and well- thought out strategy that will be instantly more appealing as a result.
Content
For blogs, the content needs to be excellently written. It needs to be engaging, it needs to be error free and it needs to really sell the ‘dream’ – the value proposition – that gives your brand its emotional appeal. The same goes for the blogs attached to a business site.
This will give you a new way to find new customers - through SEO – but it will also be what gives them a reason to go from one time visitors to followers. Usually, it will take a few encounters with your brand for someone to decide they want to sign up to the mailing list or follow you on Twitter. You need to ensure that each one of these encounters impresses so that they will become closer and closer to wanting to sign up.
The same goes for your social media. If you want someone to follow you then you need to incentive that. I’m not talking about offering free giveaways here (which will encourage people to sign up or follow and then never read anything you have to say!). Instead, I’m talking about offering something that is genuinely interesting and that is as such an incentive in itself. So instead of posting about why your business is great, you’re offering useful advice for businesses and you’re getting them excited for your brand by talking about things that matter to them.