Social Media Optimization (Web 2.0 Technology) appeared on the Internet in 2006 and has since grown to offer new online technologies to help people share their opinions and experiences with each other in the form of text, links, images, audio and video. It allows businesses to reach their target audience via a whole new channel. Social Media is worldwide and user-driven, which is both good news and bad news for companies as the user community can have enormous power over the reputation of a brand or a company. Social Media hits the online arena with the bang!!
There are many different optimisation techniques available to the Webmaster including Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Conversion rate Optimisation (CRO). Social Media Optimisation (SMO) is the most recent and looks at the social aspects of your website helping your business to interact better with your website visitors and customers. The Internet is continually changing and new technologies appear all the time.
SMO is about the strategies used to set up Social Media components on your website that allow your customers to interact and participate with you during their online experience. The whole point is to make your site more accessible to your visitors by allowing them to interact with your content via the following means.
Tagging and Bookmarking The social web is all about sharing information and tagging your web pages allows people to easily bookmark your content by adding your web pages to their list of favourites on Explorer or one of the many social websites such as Digg, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube.
Create a Blog A blog is simply a means of displaying content, one article after another on your website. This allows visitors to easily interact with your business and your services. A blog is easy to set up and is a great way to record daily events on your website. Blog are popular then website because they update dynamically and they much more informative then sites and visitor can give comment on it.
RSS Feeds Providing RSS Feeds for your services, products, blogs, etc allows users to know instantly what has changed on your website through the use of a Feed Reader. RSS Feeds help to get your content distributed across the web and is a simple way to tap into the Web 2.0 technology.
Discussion Forum Forums allow your visitors to discuss and comment on your services and products. This can be of great benefit to companies, as monitoring the Forum will give you the chance to understand your customers and put you in a position to talk to your customers directly and in real time.
Online Videos and Images Creating videos in the form of Podcasts can be a great way to communicate with your customers and bring life into website. Share your videos and pictures with popular social network sites for optimisation benefits such as YouTube.
Please visit www.seostep.net to know more about Social Media Optimisation (SMO) for further Effective Internet Marketing Services including SEO, Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) and Online Reputation Management (ORM).

So you have done the work to get people to your website, now you need to convert them into buyers.  If they have made it to your website they already have a need.  If you can convince them your product fulfills their need and they are not going to get ripped off,  the chance of buying is good.

So where do you start when building trust into your Website?  The good news is most of the actions you need to do are small, the bad news is there are a lot of them.  The more you do, the greater the comfort level and chance for a conversion to a sale.

So here are some simple steps to building trust into your website:

1. Make sure your first impression is a good one.  Have a professional and relevant website with intuitive navigation.  If they can’t find what they are looking for quickly they will move on to another website.  Make sure you are using good grammar and spelling.  Avoid the impression of sloppiness or carelessness.
2. Use language that is appropriate to the audience.  Do not talk over the buyers head.  Remember you do this for a living, they do not.  Unless you are selling to a technician, avoid technical terms, abbreviations and acronyms.  Keep the text at a high school level or lower.
3. Seriously consider creating a short video with you or someone else talking about your product or service.  This will go a long way in making a personal connection with the buyer and really give you a chance to sell the great benefits or your product or service.
4. Never talk bad about a competitor.  If your product has legitimate advantages or beneficial features talk about them in a positive way.  Bad mouthing a competitor is a sure way to look petty and scare away customers even if what you are saying is true.
5. Publish real testimonials, case studies and third party endorsements.  Typed text is great, but a 30 second video from several people would be significantly better.  Let them know how your product has helped people just like them.
6. If there are recognized trade associations or certifications then join them or get them and proudly display them.
7. Focus on building your long-term reputation, not on making a quick sale.  Reputations can take years to build and seconds to destroy.  Never lie or stretch the truth to make money.  It will come back in the long run.  Keep your promises.
8. Write and publish a Privacy Policy, Security Policy, Return Policy, Refund Policy and any Guarantees.  Use the statements “Secure Website” and “We take your privacy and security very seriously”
9. If you are selling a subscription or something that requires repeat billing, offer a low cost or free trial period.  This is a great way to reduce the buyers feeling of risk.
10. Make pricing transparent.  If additional fees are going to add significantly to the price, make sure you are disclosing this up front.  A $10 item should not cost $20 after tax, shipping and handling.
11. If you take credit cards put images of the cards accepted on each page of the order process.  Never send Credit Card information over the internet unencrypted.  Tell your customer that their data will be encrypted.
12. Have a forum on your site and respond quickly to questions. Have the attitude that you are happy to help others without receiving immediate reward. As the old saying goes, ‘Givers always gain.’ Allow people to comment on articles. Interactivity and an exchange of views build community and a sense of involvement.  If people provide constructive criticism or comments in the forum, don’t delete them, but respond with your point of view.
13. Make your ‘About Us’ page personal and comprehensive.  Publish photos or you and your staff and their roles.  Clearly identify who is behind the site.  Make sure they know they are dealing with real people.
14. On the ‘Contact Us’ page make sure you provide make sure you provide phone number, fax, and company address.  Make sure the phone number is a number people can call and speak with a real person.
15. Stay in touch with your customers.  After a sale, follow-up within 24-48 hours to thank them for their business and see if they have any questions.  Ask their permission to stay in touch with them long term.  If they like your product let them know you will give a discount on the next purchase if they will provide a testimonial about your product.
16. Regularly add new, relevant content to the website or blog.  This shows the business is alive and kicking (it helps with search engines as well !!!).

Building trust into your website is about giving your buyer or customer a sense of honesty, legitimacy and stability.  People have needs, if you get them to feel safe on your website the chance for a transaction goes up dramatically.