Trust is an important Google ranking factor. Knowledge based Trust Score is a metric that is computed by Google internally in order to judge the importance of a website. KBT scores rely on factual correctness of information while judging the trustworthiness of any website.
Trust is one of the 3 factors associated with EAT that can climb up your rankings. Here are 11 ways that will help you to make your website trustworthy.
1- Prepare Content With Lots of Supporting Data
A study by SurveyMonkey revealed that people trust content that contains supporting data.
This means you need to back up your saying with links to research that proves the truth of your sayings. This becomes more important when you are publishing content related to medicines because advice without proper links to medical research can put the lives of the people in the danger. Hence, Google trusts websites that regularly link to research and provide ample proof that the content that is being written on the site is backed up by several known agencies and reports.
2- Do Not Use Free Stock Images
People are really smart and they can easily find out that the images you have used on your website are free to use. I have seen many websites using free to use stock photos to decorate their website but they instead make the website less trustworthy. Using images on your site for which you have not received explicit permission is an unethical practice which you must avoid.
Sites that use their own images like pics of their own office building, their own employees, recipe images that are original etc. are more trustworthy as compared to the ones that use free to use images.
It is okay if you use proper attribution or link to the source of the image but do not use images illegally. The best is, use photos that are your own.
3- Make It Easy For The People To Contact You
A website without proper contact information can never be trusted because people never know whom to contact. Often spammy sites that are created for wrongdoings never display their contact information on their site. I am not saying to display your mobile number or personal email id on your website. But, if your running a business then you must display your business address, official phone number and official email id to make it easier for the people to get in touch with you.
You must have heard about Moz Spam scores, right? Moz can raise your spam score if you do not display proper contact information on your website. Google also does the same, it loses trust on websites that have no contact pages.
4- Show Your USP and Keep Your “Promise”
USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition. You need to tell the people why they must trust you? What are they going to get in return? If you directly start selling your products without listing the advantages and why it’s beneficial for the customers, people won’t buy it.
Have a look at how Mercato, the online grocery store mentions their USP in the form of “Promise” and lists out the advantages that the customers will get once they join the website. When people read words like “Promise” in the home page of the website, their subconscious mind immediately starts to trust the website because somewhere in our minds, we associate the word “Promise” with “Trust”.
Please keep in mind to keep your promises when you make them. Do not make fake promises because doing so might result in a huge loss of trust. Follow the Deloitte Trustworthiness Model which says “Trustworthiness is equal to the want to keep the promise + being able to keep the promise + working to achieve the same goals as your customers”.
5- Improve Your Customer Reviews
People trust people. There is no better way to make your website trustworthy than to earn the trust of people by displaying user reviews on your website.
Besides, displaying customer reviews on your website can increase conversions by up to 270%.
You can embed reviews from Yelp, Facebook, GoogleMyBusiness or any other review sites directly on your website. Adding customer reviews will persuade the user to stay on the site and complete the purchase because reviews improve the trust of the people.
6- Add Trust Seals/Badges On Your Site And Offer Something Exclusive
Adding trust seals and badges is another great way to make your site trustworthy. Some of the best seals to add on your site are:
Besides, offer something exclusive to your customers. Exclusivity is a psychological marketing tactic that helps to lure customers and raise the trust. There is no wonder, why Amazon offers the Prime membership to offer exclusive movie screenings. Besides, prime members are eligible for free delivery. When customers get so much, they feel special and ultimately, they start to trust the business.
Trust is one of the 3 factors associated with EAT that can climb up your rankings. Here are 11 ways that will help you to make your website trustworthy.
1- Prepare Content With Lots of Supporting Data
A study by SurveyMonkey revealed that people trust content that contains supporting data.
This means you need to back up your saying with links to research that proves the truth of your sayings. This becomes more important when you are publishing content related to medicines because advice without proper links to medical research can put the lives of the people in the danger. Hence, Google trusts websites that regularly link to research and provide ample proof that the content that is being written on the site is backed up by several known agencies and reports.
2- Do Not Use Free Stock Images
People are really smart and they can easily find out that the images you have used on your website are free to use. I have seen many websites using free to use stock photos to decorate their website but they instead make the website less trustworthy. Using images on your site for which you have not received explicit permission is an unethical practice which you must avoid.
Sites that use their own images like pics of their own office building, their own employees, recipe images that are original etc. are more trustworthy as compared to the ones that use free to use images.
It is okay if you use proper attribution or link to the source of the image but do not use images illegally. The best is, use photos that are your own.
3- Make It Easy For The People To Contact You
A website without proper contact information can never be trusted because people never know whom to contact. Often spammy sites that are created for wrongdoings never display their contact information on their site. I am not saying to display your mobile number or personal email id on your website. But, if your running a business then you must display your business address, official phone number and official email id to make it easier for the people to get in touch with you.
You must have heard about Moz Spam scores, right? Moz can raise your spam score if you do not display proper contact information on your website. Google also does the same, it loses trust on websites that have no contact pages.
4- Show Your USP and Keep Your “Promise”
USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition. You need to tell the people why they must trust you? What are they going to get in return? If you directly start selling your products without listing the advantages and why it’s beneficial for the customers, people won’t buy it.
Have a look at how Mercato, the online grocery store mentions their USP in the form of “Promise” and lists out the advantages that the customers will get once they join the website. When people read words like “Promise” in the home page of the website, their subconscious mind immediately starts to trust the website because somewhere in our minds, we associate the word “Promise” with “Trust”.
Please keep in mind to keep your promises when you make them. Do not make fake promises because doing so might result in a huge loss of trust. Follow the Deloitte Trustworthiness Model which says “Trustworthiness is equal to the want to keep the promise + being able to keep the promise + working to achieve the same goals as your customers”.
5- Improve Your Customer Reviews
People trust people. There is no better way to make your website trustworthy than to earn the trust of people by displaying user reviews on your website.
Besides, displaying customer reviews on your website can increase conversions by up to 270%.
You can embed reviews from Yelp, Facebook, GoogleMyBusiness or any other review sites directly on your website. Adding customer reviews will persuade the user to stay on the site and complete the purchase because reviews improve the trust of the people.
6- Add Trust Seals/Badges On Your Site And Offer Something Exclusive
Adding trust seals and badges is another great way to make your site trustworthy. Some of the best seals to add on your site are:
- Better Business Bureau accredited business seal.
- Symantec security seal.
- GeoTrust secured seal.
- Global sign secure trust seal.
There are several other security trust badges that can drastically raise customer trust in your business. The more you add on your site, the better it is for your business.
Besides, offer something exclusive to your customers. Exclusivity is a psychological marketing tactic that helps to lure customers and raise the trust. There is no wonder, why Amazon offers the Prime membership to offer exclusive movie screenings. Besides, prime members are eligible for free delivery. When customers get so much, they feel special and ultimately, they start to trust the business.
7- Highlight Press Coverage of Authoritative Sites
Similar to displaying security seals, highlighting logos of authoritative sites where your business might have received a coverage can boost the trust score.
It is always a great practice to display the logos of reputed press channels similar to the one displayed below:
The more your press coverage, the more logos you can display and the higher the trust you can receive from your customers.
8- Check Your Spellings and Grammar
Content that is not of a high quality receives flak from people. Your content should not be boring. You can prepare content even on a smaller budget. The only thing you need to do is to make the content non-boring and error free. Spammy sites often have a lot of grammar and spelling mistakes. Besides, they use dummy text that serves no purpose. Signs like these are enough to grade a website as non-trustworthy.
Text like the one displayed above can literally break your audiences. Hence, it is important to double check the grammar and correct any spelling mistakes before you upload the content on your site.
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