Recently I've been watching old episodes of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on YouTube (the American version, of course).
Bear with me, I promise this is about websites...
Ramsay has visited dozens of failing restaurants over the years. Many of them have been open for a decade or longer. Some for over twenty years.
Clearly, being around a long time doesn't automatically mean that the business is good. More often than not, there's a ton of problems:
- Bad food.
- Rude staff.
- Dirty kitchen.
- Shit decor
- A framed newspaper clipping from their last good review twelve years ago.
Sticking around isn't the same as being good.
I see the same thing on business websites all the time. A line somewhere near the footer, or squeezed into the hero section: Established 2003. Sometimes it's dressed up slightly: Over 20 years of experience. Same idea.
The assumption behind it is that longevity equals quality. That surviving in business for two decades is the proof a potential client needs.
It isn't that either.
Surviving isn't the same as thriving
Think about what "established in 2003" actually tells a prospect. It says you haven't gone bust. That's it. It says nothing about whether your clients are happy, whether you deliver what you promise, or whether you're any good at what you do.
A business can spend twenty years doing mediocre work, losing clients, and never quite growing past five employees. It's still "established since 2003."
The founder of that business and the founder of a company that's transformed in the last five years, doubled its client base, and has a stack of happy client testimonials — they get to write the same line.
Longevity is table stakes in a mature market. What have you done in that time that says I should give a shit?
What actually builds trust
If you've been running a service business for fifteen or twenty years, you've almost certainly got things worth talking about. The problem is most businesses bury them, or don't even mention them at all.
Here's the difference in practice:
Weak: Established since 2003
Strong: 200+ happy clients. £4.2m in cost savings delivered. 94% client retention rate.
The second version tells a prospect something real. It shows what you've done with the time you've had. Numbers like that answer the actual question in a prospect's head: will this company deliver for me?
If you don't have numbers like that yet, start with specifics. Case studies with named results. Testimonials that describe an actual outcome rather than "great service, would recommend." A client list that carries recognisable names, if you have them.
The goal is to replace longevity claims with evidence. Show what your twenty years have produced, not just that you've had them.
A quick test
Read the trust signals on your website and ask: does this prove we're good, or does it just prove we're old?
If it's the latter, you've got something worth fixing.
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