If there’s one stunning, all-encompassing, punching you in the face, you better get it right, what’s more important now than ever is this: Confidence. If trust is the new money, then your reputation is the bank account. In the new world, your customers have the same information overload as you do, but they also have unlimited choices from countless competitors, honest (sometimes) but conflicting sources, and access to other customer opinions. Your choice is difficult. If you have their trust, you have their business. Period.

There are several things you can do to build and maintain your customers’ trust. The most obvious is to build a good product and deliver on its promises. Assuming you already have that covered (and better), we’ve found some hidden gems that are a little less obvious, but no less powerful.

Tip 1: Ratings, customer and expert testimonials

The first thing to understand is that when a prospect first meets you, they don’t trust you, and with each passing day, the information overload and cynicism grows. However, there is a trust that is growing at an exponential rate, and it is trust between customers.

The most influential trust mechanism is having an anonymous product rating similar to what you would see at Amazon or Best Buy. Shoppers know that anyone who posts a product review has nothing to gain from that post. I don’t know about you, but when I see a rating of 2 or less from a decent number of people, I don’t even bother reviewing the product.

Now there is a catch, a GIANT catch, for this method. Other than creating a fantastic product, you have almost no control over what is said about you.

Food to go: Create an amazing product. If it isn’t, review it and make it one. You should be doing that anyway. You can’t hide the truth for long these days.

The next best method is to provide your visitor with plenty of satisfied customers and expert testimonials. In this case, you have a level of control over the content, but it won’t have the same resonance with customers as an anonymous rating. This is because, in most cases, you are the one asking for the feedback; Simply put, even if it’s in your customer’s own words, it doesn’t look like “real.”

Expert testimonials also go a long way in establishing customer trust. If you can get an insider, pundit, guru, or celebrity in your niche to say good things about you, it makes the buyers’ decision to trust you that much easier. They will automatically associate with you the feeling they have for that person/company.

Tip 2: Website Design and Marketing Materials

Would you have a brick and mortar business in poor condition, in a poor part of the city? Probably not. If your website is your business, then you need to take some time to focus on how your site appears. Take the time to ensure that your website presentation is clean, elegant, user-friendly and professional. Imagine if your website was a real physical store. Would customers want to go there?

The second factor is that the elegant design of a site, banner, postcard, report connotes professionalism. With today’s inexpensive tools and outsourcing options, creating a professional-grade site, brochure, or video isn’t really that difficult or expensive. Nothing says this company is a startup more than an amateurish looking website, full of broken links and misspellings, or a poorly edited and coded video.

Tip 3: Physical location and business phone

A physical location makes you real. Your customers want to make sure you actually have the goods to deliver, especially when it comes to larger purchases. After all, if you have a fancy website as mentioned above, you may very well be able to run your business from your living room. However, that is not something that will make your customers feel comfortable.

Now suppose you run your business from your living room. That’s okay, we all have to start somewhere. If that’s the case, I recommend you use a service like Mailboxes Etc, or the UPS store, but NOT a PO Box. The advantage of Mailboxes ETC or UPS is that your mailbox address is a Suite number at a real address.

Also, for phone service, try Vonage. I have had a few ISP related service issues with them, but most people I talk to don’t have any issues and are very happy with the product. One of the key benefits of vonage is that it has the built-in ability to set up multiple mailboxes and routing capabilities. While annoying, it sounds more professional to listen to an optional voice-controlled system than a message recorded on a blurry tape on your machine at home. As a bonus, you can set it up to forward your voice messages to your email account with the audio as a small attachment.

Tip 4: Branding

Having a strong brand and strong brand recognition is the holy grail of trust. There’s a reason Nike’s “swoosh” is only valued at $5 billion dollars. It makes any product it is placed in instantly reliable and in turn instantly sellable. That’s because you know what it means, you know the company that makes it, and you know you don’t need to waste valuable time trying to figure out if it’s worth talking to them in the first place.

Now, we can’t all be a multi-billion dollar company, but you can follow the same brand rules. Put your logo and your brand EVERYWHERE. Every page, every blog post, every product, every email, every partner page, every everything. The more places your customer sees your brand, the better. It also has the impact of associating your brand with the person or place that saw it. The second implication is that in a client’s mind, if you show up everywhere, you obviously have to be established.

Tip 5: Trusted Affiliations and Logos

If you have any way of being associated with an established brand, jump on that bandwagon! Leveraging another trusted brand is one of the cheapest and fastest ways to build trust. Have you worked with a trusted brand? Have you ever contributed to or been interviewed for a magazine? If so, post it in a prominent place. Who would you trust: the new guy or the one who has been featured in Forbes or partnered with Microsoft?

Other common elements of trust include the “Hacker Safe” designation, “Verisign certificates,” and the ubiquitous Better Business Bureau seal.

Tip 6 Product Warranty and Return Policy

There is no question that you need to have a strong warranty and a generous return policy for your product. These should be formal and prominent on your site. It’s not uncommon to see a full 30-day refund (often a 100% refund AND they keep the bonuses free) on every information product you view. On a similar note, the churn rate for introductory price continuity programs is very, very high. It’s not uncommon to see a 50% cancellation rate after a trial period ends. Be prepared, it’s just the nature of this market and not necessarily a reflection of your product.

To build trust, your product warranty and return policies must be fair, firm, and prompt. If you receive a refund request, please process it immediately, always within the stated timeframe and sooner if possible. Without exceptions.

Tip 7: Privacy Policy

Your customers are very concerned about their privacy and don’t want their personal information (even email address) sold to the highest bidder. While savvy customers will often have “junk” email addresses that they typically use for subscription lists, a large portion of visitors, especially new visitors, will use their primary email address.

Honor your trust. If you don’t share your email addresses, please tell them prominently and be sure to link to their privacy policy. Make sure you have a clear unsubscribe option on both your website and in your promotional emails.