[blakerson]

You can build trust! Blogs, email, the usual advice all applies, but you may also consider getting a professional take on design or at least adopting a framework (Bootstrap/Foundation).

People can spend plenty of time arguing the merits of those frameworks, but they were pretty much built for guys like you who are programmers and could use opinionated UI that's passed review in someone's design department. Use a theme/skinning site like bootswatch.com to throw in some variety with colors/typography and still have some thought put in the small details like "what should be the relative difference between your font sizes?"

Between your personal branding and the impressions created by first glances at your product, you can have some easy wins with credibility.

[nathanstitt]

Well, I am using Bootstrap. But didn't want to have the Yet Another Bootstrap site look. Guess maybe I should have left well enough alone...

In fact the website is built entirely on bootstrap and Backbone.js Using my liquid_assets gem I've managed to make it searchable as well. I use the sass version of Bootstap and allow the user to modify the colors from the management side.