The initial opinion someone has of your internet site will very likely influence how long they will spend searching around it. Trust is a mammoth issue on the internet, and it is your obligation to defend against every concern a likely customer may have.

The important question to postulate is – how professional does your website look? If it looks like it’s been designed by someone who has just left school, it’s time you reconsidered your approach. There is a vast difference between a website designed and built by professionals who understand what works best and who are far more proficient at it than you, and that of the alternative choices.

Irrespective of what some may think, meaningful business is still done on the basis of the relationships that are formed and that will come from trust. Even if you run a small shopping cart on your website you will not get anyone to buy form you unless they can trust who you say you are and that you will deliver the goods in line with what was conveyed. This is why eBay has done so well because people trust eBay itself and let them carry the major component of trust.

So how do develop a relationship through a website?

Not easy but it can be accomplished.

Whilst internet businesses lack the ability to develop relationships face-to-face, this doesn't preclude the importance of building relationships with your online customers - you simply have to go about it a with a different attitude and context. This is effected in part, through your internet site itself, occasionally through electronic mail communications, and now and again over the telephone. Since the website is usually your first point of contact, and therefore the point where you create your first impression, it's critical that your website do all that it can to set the foundation for creating a strong relationship. Your website can't do everything for you, but if your visitors come and leave without ever having made even contact with a person in your organisation identified on your site, they will leave without having constituted any sort of intimacy, and consequently no sense of "association," with you or your business.

I stumbled across the following on a blog and feel it is relevant to the need of developing relationships through your website.

People are insecure; give them confidence.
People want to feel special; compliment them.
People desire a better tomorrow; show them hope.
People need to be understood; listen to them.
People are selfish; speak to their needs first.
People are emotionally low; encourage them.
People want to be associated with success; help them win.

--Pete Vossler