This week we’d like to share with you some of the best ways to build your online credibility. First you’ll need to do an audit of your marketing mix. There are 3 key things you’ll be looking for.

1) Whether or not your landing page design is scrumbly (i.e., bad). If it is, you’ll definitely want to fix it up. What makes a page’s design poor? When it doesn’t follow best practices developed by industry professionals. If you’re not sure what these standards are, then your page design is probably sub-par. Poor design can scare off consumers by making it difficult for them to know what to do and where to find what they want on your site. For starters, try reading some Marketing Sherpa Landing Page literature and have a designer take a look at your page layout for you. See what you find out. General improvements you can implement right away are to make it sleeker, sharper and sexier. Make it easier to look at, read, and navigate. Learn about the science of where to put your buttons and where to place your images. Get familiar with the concept of ABOVE THE FOLD and how it’s used to a marketer’s advantage. Update your calls-to-action to make them clear and compelling. When writing your sales copy, don’t serve up tons of text that isn’t properly aligned. Put genuine thought and aesthetic into it. Make sure there aren’t any spelling errors in your body text. Spelling mistakes look amateur and undermine the very credibility you’re trying to build. In the end design is more important than most affiliates think. Take good care of it and it will help you drive higher revenue.

2) Whether or not you’ve got trust badges on your site and landing pages is key. If they are absent, don’t wait, put them in there pronto. Badges like the Better Business Bureau, VeriSign and others can do wonders to make your customers feel safe and comfortable spending their greenbacks with you. Any real testimonials that reflect the true value and reputation of the product you’re selling will work well in establishing your business cred, too.

3) Whether or not your site or landing pages have broken links. If they do, fix them right away. This is a very important part of developing credibility that many affiliates overlook. Imagine you’re a customer coming from a PPC ad, you hit the sales page, and click on a button that immediately takes you to an error page. NOT COOL, RIGHT? Every broken link a visitor hits causes a loss in credibility and can prevent them from getting the information they need in order to “convert” into a customer, a lead, or a member of your community. Even worse, each visitor follows a broken link on your site is basically given a stiff virtual boot to the curb. They literally have to click their way back in in order to stay on your site, which they are highly unlikely to do.

All too often affiliates build their websites fast cheap and out of control, without paying attention to these 3 simple things. In the end it hurts their credibility and ultimately their online sales. So don’t be one of these people. If you can’t design, hire someone to do it for you. Or have your affiliate network do it for you. It’s worth the investment. Be sure to put lots of trust badges and testimonials on your pages where people can see them. All the highest earning affiliates have awesome landing pages with killer copy and links that are 100% operational.

Finally, run broken link checks on your sites and landing pages. Make sure there aren’t any dead links that are damaging your credibility. Implement a custom 404 redirect page for unforeseen problems. Make sure your redirect page takes visitors back to your site, and contact other sites to have them fix any broken links to you.

Pay attention to these 3 things and your credibility and sales will increase.