Trust me!!!

When people build a website or blog for some particular purpose or issue, mostly, they want to share their ideal, information or opinion from their website or blog with other people. And further purpose, they hope their website is able to become popular and acceptable by other people(Krauss 2008).However, how to let website or blog to become popular and acceptable, the key point is to build potential trust and trustworthiness. Trust and trustworthiness are human motive or potential behavior to believe in something or also pay devoted spirit to support some specific objectives. Both of them are able to extend the credit to people’s relationship and make people deserve to follow the main point(Young 2007).

People trust sources which are genuine and other people who have encountered similar circumstances as the one they are facing (Krauss 2008). An online study reveals that consumer opinions posted online and brand websites are among the trusted sources for online consumers (Anon 2008). Thus, a company website or a blog-site should have review section or a testimonial section for people to post their experience who have used the service/ product in past. Some recent statistical facts which show company’s good results would be effective in posing the authenticity of the company. Comments by independent experts on the subject (products/services) that company deal

s with are highly trusted (Krauss 2008).For example, for the company manufacturing furniture; any review or positive comments by an independent expert on the furniture manufactured by the company, if poste

d on the website would be highly beneficial in building trust in consumers.

Factors responsible to create trustworthy websites

Credibility on website is essential as it pushes consumers to register on the websites and also resort to other services offered by the company(Brian et al. 2003).

Website visitors visit websites to both get information on a product/service and eventually decide to purchase. The purchase act however can be determined or influenced by the presence of certain factors.

Presentation

Presentation here refers to the design and format of the website. A good use of colours, words and images can grab attention. The element of professionalism can be questioned by certain aspects such as grammatical errors, use of certain typefaces, and useless information/animation (Brian et al. 2003)

Navigation

This refers to the ease at which consumers can browse easily on the website i.e by being able to go directly to the area of interest and extract the required information or detail (Brian et al. 2003). For instance, a home product retailer selling furniture such as kitchen items, office items, bathroom equipment will need to segment the items to fall within a particular group on the website so it can facilitate browsing and save the time of the c

onsumer who wants to buy a particular item i.e. if a consumer wishes to purchase an office table, chair etc all he needs to do is to click on the “Office items” column and have a variety to pick from(Krauss 2008).

Therefore, websites should be configured in a way to improve and ease browsing. This aspect makes a website credible.

Speed The ability of a website to give immediate results upon a click renders it reliable and trustworthy. For it considered effective and saves the consumer’s time. There is nothing as annoying than to have a website which requires a 1 or 2 minute hold before releasing search results(Young 2008).

Fulfilment: By actually applying what is said on the website instils trust. A lot of Company websites have lost their credibility because they said something on the website but did not apply it in practice. In other words, they failed to fulfil “their promise” (Young 2008). An example can be indicating on your Company website that it offers free delivery regardless of the items bought but not actually doing as said. This calls for contradiction and consequently, results to lack of trust (Brian et al. 2003).

Transparency

The website should be projecting the real image of the comapany website. It must reveal some information such as history, work ethics, reason the company was build which is true and thus portray transperancy, which would start the process of handshaking with the online customer or client (Bradley 2006).

Some other ways suggested by avangate bloggers to maintain credibility on a website is by:

-Publishing photos of real people on your website(like the team you are working with)

-Giving your contact details online

-Responding to as many emails as possible

-Provide clients with quick answers to their queries and needs

-Rendering it useful to visitors by being informative

-Updating the site regularly

-Putting testimonials of satisfied customers

-Paraphrasing or quoting brilliant minds (Aavangate bloggers 2007).

Creating Trustworthiness in Foot Ball websites

Manchester United Football Club Website - sign of trust

The manchester United Football club website is one of the best websites in terms of factors such as presentation, navigation, fulfillment, transperancy and hence worth trusting.

The site is well designed with consistent use of white, red and black colours and consitent use of colour white for the text.

It is very easy to navigate on the site with tabs and links and search boxes which are very user friendly. The club wants to show transparency through all the facts and the cover storeis about the club. The club mentions opinions from neutral sources as newspapers. To tell the user about what the club wants to communicate they have palyer interviews and recent information such as match fixtures, player transfers, newsletter. The websites delivers brilliantly on the fulfillmant aspect by providing offers and membership discounts. The details are mentioned clearly and in a very warm style(Manutd 2008).

Interesting facts from other football clubs which results in building trust.

Wimbledon Foot ball club

The owner of Wimbledon foot ball club Charles Koppel once dreamed of shifting the club to Milton Keynes. To make things happen faster, Wimbledon Independent Supporters Association (WISA) created a forum in the club site in order to explore the views from supporters and fans regarding the shifting of the club to Milton Keynes. Lists of instructions were put up on the web site(Auty 2002).

· The Southampton Foot Ball club

The Southampton Foot ball club ran an online vote in the club site for supporters and fans in order to choose best kit for the players while playing. This was also an important way of interacting with the supporters and thus bringing trustworthiness between the club site and supporters(Auty 2002).The trustworthy towards sites made the fans well informed and helped in solving various issues and even the government look for help from the supporters in solving issues.

References:

Anon (2008) ‘It’s a matter of Trust.’Stores Magazine [online] 89, (11)18-18

Aavangate bloggers (2007) How to improve website credibility:43 steps to achieve site credibility [online] available from <http://www.avangate.com/articles/website-credibility_81.htm >

Auty, C. (2002) ‘Football Fan power and the internet: net gains?’ Journal of Aslib proceedings 54 (5), 273-279

Bradley S (2006) 'Building Trust Through Transparency'[online] available from <http://www.vanseodesign.com/blog/online-business/building-trust-through-transparency/>

Brian,C. Theerasak,T.Han,Y. (2003) Trust and ecommerce: a study of consumer perception.Journal of Electronic Commerce Research & Applications Vol.2,(3), 203

Krauss M., (2008) ‘Tenets of Trust’ Marketing News [online] 42, (9)

Manutd (2008) available from <.http://www.manutd.com/>

Young, D.(2007) Screencast; Building trust and credibility [online] available from

< http://www.grokdotcom.com/2007/10/26/trust-and-credibility-screencast/ >