The internet provides the greatest single source of information in the history of mankind.  It has revolutionised every aspect of life as we know it, both personally and professionally.  It seems almost unimaginable to think of a world where the web doesn’t exist, but 11 short years ago that’s where we were.  Despite these huge advances in the popularity and penetration of the web, people often remain highly sceptical of its content.

This was brought home to me recently by a conversation with a client, a major Irish bank.  Their internet manager told me that he had been in a branch recently, where the branch manager explained that one of his staff got a phone call from a customer, asking for their latest interest rates.  His staff member provided the interest rates over the phone, to which the customer replied, “Oh those rates are the same as the ones on your website!”  Perhaps this story gives an insight into the level of trust, or rather mistrust with which some people view web content.

Last year UCLA published a survey on American internet usage.  The survey found that 71% of Americans used the internet in 2002, and 61% of those said that they saw it as a “very important” or “extremely important” source of information.  This was higher than for any other source, including television, newspaper and radio.  As UCLA Director Jeff Cole concluded, “The real growth in the Internet and the perception of it now is as a place you go to find things out.  The Internet has made very few inroads as a place you go to be entertained.”

Crucially though, the UCLA survey found that only 53% of people found most or all of the information online to be credible in 2002, down from 58% in 2001 and 55% in 2000.  Credibility and trustworthiness remain major issues for people searching for information online.  Unfortunately for the web community, UCLA focus groups suggested that skepticism in web content is set to grow.

Many companies who have published websites only have themselves to blame for this situation.  During the craziness of the 1998 – 2000 Dot Com boom and bust, it seemed that anything was possible.  The web was full of outrageous marketing statements, ludicrous claims and promises, and exceptionally poor service.  Even today the inaccurate, dangerous message that launching a website will expose your company to a global audience seems to linger, tempting companies to exaggerate unnecessarily on their website in a way they wouldn’t consider in other media.

People are more educated today than ever before – they are empowered to make good decisions by becoming informed.  Today people are depending less and less on experts when it comes to make their purchasing (and other) choices.  Rather they gather information on the web.  It’s not that experts don’t matter or aren’t important, rather the customer has become empowered to question them, to compare them and to make their own judgment.  Information has enabled the customer to do their own research and make their own mind up.

Business theorists would explain that the web has been the single most important driver in returning much of commerce today to entrepreneurial selling.  This is a position whereby buyer and seller engage with each other, from a roughly equal position, neither party holding all the cards and with similar amounts of knowledge about each other and their products.  To facilitate the sales process, the seller must therefore be prepared to educate and inform the buyer accurately and clearly.

How can you ensure that the content of your site is trustworthy?  Invest in content.  Many organisations invest in technology, invest in content management and invest in web design but they fail to invest in content.  This means investing in people who can write web content, it means looking at web publishing as a skill and talent in itself, it means taking the writing as seriously as you take the graphics and the technology.  It is essential that you get your content right – if it isn’t credible, timely, accurate and trustworthy you are better off having no website.