5 ways that online perceptions create offline reality

The fact that businesses would even begin to consider that their website is merely a place where existing clients “can find them” is ludicrous. Why have a website if you’re not utilising its full potential to generate leads, build a brand or trade? I ask this with tears in my eyes. Online perceptions of a business’s size, success and credibility create offline realities of a business’s size, success and credibility. So the question that we’re addressing here is how, as a business, do you create positive online perceptions in order to create effective offline reality?

1. Trust in, trust out

You literally have a few seconds to gain the trust of someone visiting your site. So how can you do this effectively? First off a website needs to be current. This includes content, pictures, news, products and specials. Having a banner with March Specials when its November is detrimental. Secondly, don’t make your site too busy. If the visitor has no idea where to look and is overwhelmed by information they will click away. Thirdly, read your content with a fine-tooth- comb. Any spelling or grammar mistakes are an immediate trust eliminator. Lastly, the more your site conforms to the normal standard, the better. People trust the norm. Don’t suddenly put your navigation bar across the bottom, it confuses people and they will leave.

2. People like people
This point goes hand in hand with trust. Make your site approachable by using real photos of yourself, your staff, real testimonials and personal names to contact. Steer away from stock images and info@company.co.za email addresses. A live chat functionality works incredibly well to engage with your sites visitors and increase the “human factor”.

3. Engage and do it quickly

Lifestyles Online, a Pan European data capture agency conducted research with 7637 consumers. They concluded that 49% of people expect to be contacted within 24 hours of submitting an online enquiry. 17% said within 15 minutes, 10% said within half an hour, 8% said within an hour and only 16% said after 24 hours. It goes without saying that if you have an enquiry form on your page, you need to answer any enquiry within 24 hours. Engagement also refers to social media communities your business has, and making these icons available on your website to like, join, comment or share with. Having these icons present allows visitors to see that your business interacts with its communities, that it is present, engaged and available which in turn increases trust.

4. Speak the truth

Having valid and real testimonials on your website creates the perception of credibility. These need to be written by clients and where possible have a head and shoulders photo of your client as well as their company logo in the testimonial. It is preferable too to have these on your homepage or landing page.

5. Design debate

Dated design and bad copy are an immediate repellent, however a pretty website that is completely ineffective is just as damaging. When you really get down to it, there are a variety of aspects on a webpage that can be manipulated in order to attract the right audience. They may not look fashionable, but they are effective. Call-to-action (CTA) are incredibly important however the text, colour, shape and positioning of a CTA will drastically influence your conversion rates.

An example of this is when Fitness World in Scandanavia created two separate landing pages with only one difference. Landing Page 1 said “Get your Membership” and Landing Page 2 said “Find your gym and get membership”. Landing Page 2 saw a 213.16% increase in CTR. In this scenario it turns out that gym location is a very important factor when signing up for a membership. The valuable point here is to test the various options, in multiple combinations and then use the most effective one.

What is perceived online can either make or break your brand. Make sure it’s the first option.