12 Easy Quality Indicators to Combine to Prove Trust
There are several quick easy ways to establish some trust for your domain. There are really no excuses to not have most of this stuff for any legitimate business website. It’s so easy and the opportunity cost is extremely low compared to the potential benefits. Read: Yes, this is speculative - but it’s also relatively easy, shouldn’t take you long, and MOST LIKELY will combine for better results. You can probably argue each one of these - but why bother when you could be out working on more sites to test it on?
1. Privacy Policy
2. Contact page with physical address and phone number
3. Submit to local listings (assists with above)
4. Extended period domain registration
5. Get a half dozen trusted links (if I told you they’d no longer be trusted)
6. Legit WHOIS data that matches other records
7. Dedicated IP* - recently mentioned by Jim.
8. Adding a FEW trusted outbound authority links - wikipedia, industry associations, etc.
9. Valid code (or close to anyhow) - you can argue this all day, but on a massive scale better code = higher quality
10. Fast server response time*
11. No 404’s
12. Extremely limited downtime*
*If you can afford more for a better host, you’re more likely to be in it for the long run, and likely to be of higher quality. Don’t believe me? Would you be more trusting buying a car from someone with three cars on the side of the road, or a dealership that had been in business 20 years and had a nice location? Why do you think big banks are located in high rent downtown districts and have marble floors?
Pay attention to what is credible to both users AND someone with a search relevance quality mindset. Everyone says optimize for users - try optimizing your site for to convince a savvy threadwatch readin’, affiliate site buildin’ fickle user that you are credible, and it will probably help your SEO efforts these days.
These are the easy ways - you have to work them together and THINK about what would indicate quality on a mass level. Seriously folks, quality indicators = trust. It’s not about keyword stuffing and link bombing anymore…SEO is about proving you’re trustworthy - it makes it even easier when you actually ARE - but even if you ARE - you have to know how to SHOW that you are. Let the damn dog sniff your hand!
Inspired by Michael’s recent post on Google using WHOIS data.
From GrayWolf:
So how would one go about providing that strong indication of quality in the absence of actual quality?
Yes. Sometimes you gotta fake the funk when you’re an affiliate. That’s why affiliates know how to display and identify ACTUAL trust when it’s present. That’s also why affiliate types are fickle shoppers and know how to look for credibility on a website (kinda like evaluating reviews and ratings on ebay). SE’s don’t hate affiliates - they hate low quality, non-trustworthy sites. They’re just gonna “play the odds” with indicators of quality.
Trust is a big piece of the equation right now. There’s too many GOOD sites for engines to worry too much about collateral damage. If you don’t know how to PROVE you’re trustworthy, then you definitely won’t be.
19 Comments Leave a comment »
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VentStation.com
August 31st, 2006,
8:07 pm
Thanks for the advice, we’re saving up for the dedicated server.
Stuntdubl SEO
August 31st, 2006,
9:00 pm
Don’t even necessarily need a full on dedicated server (though it’d probably help - not low hanging fruit) - just a dedicated IP address.
Nick
September 1st, 2006,
1:26 pm
Hey Todd,
When you say a few outbound authority links. Is that on a per site basis (e.g have them on the homepage, and internal pages), or on a per page basis (just reference them on your ‘resources’ page?)
Ben Wilks
September 1st, 2006,
9:45 pm
Excellent tips there Todd!!
ProfitPapers
September 4th, 2006,
3:45 pm
Labour Day Links…
I’m not even an American and I’m lazy on Labour Day. Here is what caught my eye today….
goodroi
September 5th, 2006,
1:48 pm
hey todd - great tips that will help sites be trusted by the engines and humans. also i would suggest spending money on a professional web design. it is hard to get people to link to you if your site looks like crap and if you have few inbound links it is hard for the engines to trust ya.
SEO = Trust | Phoenix Web Design
September 5th, 2006,
5:36 pm
[…] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Leave aReply […]
Mugshot
September 7th, 2006,
3:56 pm
You forgot About Page
shandyking
September 7th, 2006,
5:38 pm
“try optimizing your site for to convince a savvy threadwatch readin’”
Threadwatchers tend to speak funny!
shimon sandler - seo consultant
September 8th, 2006,
6:40 pm
I am understanding that the more detailed your privacy policy is, the better. not necessarily longer, just more detailed regarding the handling of secure information, and an email address, legal contact, etc. any thoughts on that?
Brian Mark
September 12th, 2006,
6:28 pm
Very nice post indeed, Todd. Everyone needs to be trusted, regardless if they’re selling something or not. And you’re right… the more you show you’re invested into the site, the more people think you’re going to be around tomorrow and the more likely they’ll trust you - buying, contacting for a quote, asking for your services, or even linking is all related to trust in the end. Heck, even leaving a comment on a blog is related to trust.
My Head is A Rocket » Establish trust for your domain.
September 15th, 2006,
2:11 pm
[…] There is a widespread belief that Google and the rest of the gang are using or experimenting with quality scoring for sites, rather than simply pages. Google has made it plain to the search community, that they use “over 100″ factors to determine the relevance ranking of an individual page, and they have alluded that many of the factors are attempts to promote sites that use web development best practices. Aaron Wall at SEObook.com was the first person I saw to point to a white paper describing a methodology using similar factors styled as “TrustRank”(WARNING - PDF DOWNLOAD). Todd Malicoat aka Stuntdubl recently published a bulletproof argument for implementing 12 easy quality indicators these include outbound authority links, a dedicated IP address, and other both non-controversial and controversial symbols of quality. Why is the argument bulletproof? As Stuntdubl says “You can probably argue each one of these - but why bother when you could be out working on more sites to test it on?” […]
Adam Sharp
September 15th, 2006,
10:41 pm
Your list is good, I especially like the site uptime related ones (people seem to underestimate this one).
However, I would add something about the importance of examining a sites’ outbound links. Outbounds seem to be gaining more weight than they had previously, as search engines crack down on link selling/trading/etc.
14th Colony Scout » Blog Archive » Challenging the Experts: Google Sandbox “Trust” Escape
November 24th, 2006,
9:01 am
[…] The second post is 12 Easy Quality Indicators to Combine to Prove Trust. Todd admits these factors are speculation (though I agree they are still good ideas to implement). Point number 5 is: 5. Get a half dozen trusted links (if I told you they’d no longer be trusted) […]
Convertup.com | Web Usability » Blog Archive » Valid Code as an Indicator of SE Trust
January 18th, 2007,
5:15 pm
[…] I will argue, however, that having Valid XHTML / CSS or close to it should be and in the future may be an indicator of trust to the search engines. I’m not saying valid code will ever be a huge indicator of trust, but maybe just a smaller piece of the trust puzzle, like having a privacy policy. […]
Trust as the most important online value
January 22nd, 2007,
10:22 pm
[…] Yet again, the above list could be continued, but the principles are the same: you need to focus on delivering value to your customers and be open about it with them. It is the people that count, not websites. […]
Roderick Coleman
May 7th, 2007,
1:35 am
Very Well said. Some other tips should have been like trust seals, mission statements, company biography pages, etc. Many sites don’t take the time to provide these.
Improve the Web
August 6th, 2007,
3:16 am
Build trust: the most important online value…
Once done with creating and improving a website, you can very well spend your time on improving your online business. Apart from providing a useful product, you can consider building more trust with your customers to become more successful.
…
Why Links Matter: So Simple a Monkey Could Understand It - Sugarrae
October 8th, 2007,
1:43 pm
[…] The exact components of trustrank are still debatable. But the bottom line is that websites needed more than links and pagerank to survive. They needed to exude quality indicators and get links from “trusted” websites (and allow those links to age like wines). […]
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