How to Gain the Trust of Web Design Clients

by Anjana Wickramaratne Digital Marketer And Web Designer

Gaining the trust of your web design clients is one of the most important things when it comes to running a successful web design business. This is because if you gain the trust of your clients, then they will end up bringing more sales and leads for you in the future, but if you don’t gain the trust or loses the trust of your clients, then it would greatly negatively impact your business.

Therefore, how can you gain the trust of your web design clients? Well, if you follow the following steps, you will be able to gain the trust of your clients and get your web design business on the fast track to success.

Improve your own website.

First things first, your website will be the first thing a potential client will see, and if that is not up to a certain standard, you already lost your client’s trust.

Therefore, you must first make your own website more attractive and trustworthy. This does not mean falsely advertise on your website such as “we have worked with ABC brands”, when in truth you haven’t. This disrupts your credibility with clients if caught. Especially if you are a new business where there is no chance that big brands will hire you anyway.

Therefore, you must always be transparent on your website. But this does not mean that you can’t leverage other elements to your advantage. Here are some of the simple elements you can change to increase the credibility of your website to clients.

1. Overall Website Design

The overall website design is very important on the first impression of the client. As we all know, the first impression matters the most. Henceforth, your website must look professional and up to date. If your website design is outdated, then your clients will feel like you will design them an outdated website as well. This is the reason why you should keep your website design up to date and professional, and don’t forget, your website acts as a portfolio to your clients as well.

Also, another most common mistake we have seen some designers do is that they try to fill up their home page with a lot of information which really is unnecessary for the home page. This will make the website unorganized and make it difficult for the clients to find the information they require. Therefore, be clear on the website navigation and provide the most valuable information only.

2. Get an SSL certificate to your website.

SSL certificate is an assurance of the safety of the website. This is the small padlock at the top of the left-hand cover next to the actual URL. If your website has no SSL certificate it will be shown as “Not Secure” next to your URL which, scares away most clients. The SSL certificate will allow your clients to be more comfortable on your website and they will not hesitate to fill out inquiry forms, etc as your website is secure.

You can get an SSL certificate by contacting your website hosting company and requesting one. It adds a small amount to your annual or monthly billing, but it is definitely worth it and highly recommended.

3. Be transparent about you and your team.

Your business is run by humans, and you should represent that on your website. We have seen a lot of websites that have no information about their designers and developers. This is something a lot of clients check before they interact with a business. Having a team mentioned or if you are an individual offering the service, having your information on a section in the “About Us” page makes a huge difference and it makes the clients more trustworthy as they can see a human face of who they are working with rather than someone who they have never seen.

This is a very simple but very effective way to increase the trust of clients which unfortunately most web design companies do not implement.

Improve on your client communication skills.

Your communication with the clients is another important element in gaining their trust. The way you greet your clients on calls or in meetings to handing objections or disputes all come under here. The key point here is that no matter what, be polite to the client. Even in a dispute, as there is a saying in business “customer is always right”.

For example, we here at Inspirenix web design Sri Lanka, a leading web design company in Sri Lanka, always greet our clients with the utmost respect and we keep them in close contact on each step of the project updating them on what is going on. This will make the client feel that they know what is happening on their project and eventually increases their trust in us.

When we are talking about communication skills, we definitely have to touch on the topic of the first interaction with the client. This is important because most of your client’s trust is built here. If you ask the right questions here, you have gained 50% of their trust. Therefore, what are these questions?

What is the goal of the website for the client?
Who are their main competitors?
Who is the website targeted for?
What are your USPs?

When you ask these questions from the client, they will get the idea that you don’t just design websites, you design websites that take the client to their goals as you are doing the necessary research eventually increasing their trust in you.

Get some portfolios and positive reviews.

I know that this is something you knew or heard of already, but I couldn’t neglect it as it is very important. Potential clients do tend to refer to your previous work and read reviews before they obtain any service and if your reviews or portfolio are bad, then you have lost their trust then and there and you will never get them as a client again.

The best way to gain positive reviews is to ask clients for an honest opinion. Usually, clients don’t leave a positive review if they are satisfied, they just take the website and leave. The only time they leave a review is when they are dissatisfied and want to warn the public about your service. As this is the case of human behavior, you must request your clients for reviews as they will not leave a good review if you don’t ask for one.

Let’s say you are brand new for web design, then what would you do as there are no reviews? Well, the best thing to do here is to be completely honest with clients and if possible, offer them the service with no down payment where they will feel safe. I know that this is not good for web designers but at the beginning of your careers with no portfolio or reviews, this is one of the most effective ways to gain the trust of clients.

Getting the final delivery right.

The final, most important and the most obvious element in gaining your client's trust is getting the final delivery exactly right. It doesn’t matter if you followed all the above methods if you get this wrong because you have to 100% satisfy the client with their final project delivery as this is where your clients decide if they will recommend you to others and come back for some more projects or just move away from you for good.

The best part is that if you followed all the above steps, you have all the information required to get the project a 100% success as all you have to do is design the website according to that information collected by the research from the client.

Also, let’s be honest, most clients will require revisions either small or big. The attitude you show on their revisions will reflect in their trust for you as well. Therefore, keep a positive and polite attitude and you will have nothing to worry about other than clients coming crawling back to you.

Conclusion

I hope that now you know what to do and what not to do in gaining the client’s trust. Just remember, trust takes a lot of effort to build and a tiny mistake to lose it all.