• 1. Make sure that your web pages have a professional design

  Your web pages have to look perfect. If necessary, hire a professional web designer. Don't use blinking text, funny animations or flashy banners on your page. Make sure that all links on your website are intact.

  Don't use automatically created web pages. Some software programs allow you to automatically create pages that are "optimized" for a special keyword. These doorway pages don't work anymore on search engines (its simply spamming).

• 2. Tell your website visitors who you are

  Make sure that customers know that a real person is sitting behind this web page. Include your full contact information on your website and make it easy to find.

  If your visitors don't know from whom they will purchase and how to contact you, they won't buy anything. Show your privacy policy.

• 3. Offer free trials and show your refund policy

  The most common way that companies use to establish trustworthiness is to offer a free trial and a money back guarantee. If your customers know what they'll get, they'll be more likely to purchase.

• 4. Use testimonials

  Its far better if other people say nice things about you than you saying nice things about yourself. Testimonials from satisfied customers will show how your business can do a better job than your competitor when it comes to customer satisfaction.

  On the Internet, you cannot speak face to face with your customer so you have to establish credibility in other ways.

Author : Axandra GmbH • Nordring 21 • 56424 Staudt

I want to add here : The Cluetrain Manifesto

( references to the originals below, I think it is useless to add further intelligent comments from my side )

• 3.) Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.
• 6.) The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.
• 7.) Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.
• 8.) In both internetworked markets and among intranetworked employees, people are speaking to each other in a powerful new way.
• 9.)These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.
• 10.) As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.
• 11.) People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.
• 12.) There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.
• 14.) Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.
• 15.) In just a few more years, the current homogenized "voice" of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.
• 22.) Getting a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate web site. Rather, it requires big values, a little humility, straight talk, and a genuine point of view.
• 27.) By speaking in language that is distant, uninviting, arrogant, they build walls to keep markets at bay.
• 42.) As with networked markets, people are also talking to each other directly inside the company—and not just about rules and regulations, boardroom directives, bottom lines.
• 56.) These two conversations want to talk to each other. They are speaking the same language. They recognize each other's voices.
• 59.) However subliminally at the moment, millions of people now online perceive companies as little more than quaint legal fictions that are actively preventing these conversations from intersecting.
• 61.) Sadly, the part of the company a networked market wants to talk to is usually hidden behind a smokescreen of hucksterism, of language that rings false—and often is.
• 75.) If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change.
• 76.) We've got some ideas for you too: some new tools we need, some better service. Stuff we'd be willing to pay for. Got a minute?
• 77.) You're too busy "doing business" to answer our email? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we'll come back later. Maybe.
• 78.) You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention.
• 94.) To traditional corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down.
• 5.) We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.

Ever heared about Facebook and Social Networks ?

The manifesto was written in 1999 by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger.