You treated them well while you were making your business transactions. You gave them a fair price, knew that quality you put into your offering matched quality they got out of it. You assured them that service is your middle name. You smiled and used their name when you said good-bye, thanking them for sale. And then, after all that caring attention on your part, they completely ignored you, never set foot in your business again.

Do you want to know why they ignored you, why it was so easy for them to put you out of their minds?

It's because you ignored them. It's because you made sale and then made grave but all-too-common error of thinking that your marketing job was over. That was a terrible error. But at least you've got a lot of company making same terrible error. Nearly 70 percent of business lost in America is lost due to apathy after sale. Apathy is deadliest enemy of marketing. A "love 'em and leave 'em" attitude is usually fatal to profitability.

The opposite of apathy is follow-up. Guerrillas have a "love 'em and love 'em" attitude, marketing to prospects like crazy till sale is made, then continuing to market like crazy to them after sale. Apathy never sets in. Customers never feel ignored. Guerrillas do all in their power to intensify relationship with caring follow-up and loving attention. They know that once they have established a relationship, their product or service is no longer thought of as a commodity. Businesses that offer commodities often lose customers due to competitors offering lower prices. Businesses that form warm relationships transcend being thought of as a commodity and maintain their customer relationships with service and constant contact.

Good, reliable information? Absolutely. But you never would have gotten to that great information if they didn't first gain most important characteristic a Web site must get from you, and what YOU must get from your visitors... Trust.

Trust is essential. Trust is why you didn't hit Back button on your browser to go look somewhere else. Gain your visitors trust and they will stay at YOUR site too.

The next time you are at one of your favorite sites, think about this as you read down page. More importantly, do this at your own site. Put yourself in your visitors place. Does your site convey trust? Let's look at some ways of improving trust factor with your visitors.

1. Have a clean, easily navigable, well-maintained site.

Think this doesn't have anything to do with trust? Think again. You've heard about maintaining your site before, but we need to begin here. I'll just touch on it quickly.

We've all been to those sites that seem to make it as difficult as possible to find anything. There's probably some great information in there somewhere, but they frustrate you by making it difficult to find so you give up and leave.

There are also those sites that have dead links everywhere and a statement along lines of "Last updated: March, 1998." You and I are not going to stick around to see what they have to offer. Nobody trusts a site that is sloppy and not maintained.

Bottom line: A well designed site is a whole other article indeed, but it does have its place here concerning trust. Keep your site simple with clean navigation, regularly test all your links, and content up to date.

2. Don't over-commercialize or tell half-truths on your site.

When creating copy for your site, don't be crass and annoying. This probably seems obvious enough to you. It can be difficult at times though, especially when you have a great product you believe in and are working hard to tell your visitors about it.

The KEY is to find middle between boring and over zealous.

Yes, you want to sell products, and you want energy in your copy, but don't write stuff like "YES!!! MAKE $$$20,000$$$ BY TOMORROW WITH THIS SIMPLE TECHNIQUE!!!!!" in some obscure 48-point font.

Exclamation points, dollar signs, strange fonts, and shouting all rolled into one ridiculous statement like this is not going to gain you any credibility with your visitors. They won't be saying to themselves "Wow! I need to see what this is!", but rather "Oh, brother!" and get out of there in blink of an eye.

Stay away from becoming like those sites that have 26 banners with flashing lights and animation plastered all over their home page that takes forever to download. Sites that do this do not gain trust, but instead appear like one big get rich quick scheme. Don't misunderstand! Affiliating with other sites is an outstanding opportunity, but you need to do it right. Work affiliation into your content tactfully and you will gain trust.