Getting Googles Trust

Four simple things you can do to help Google trust you.

What do we mean by trust from Google?

It is the lack of trust from Google that causes new websites to be penalised, and get awarded a PR of 0. As a web site ages it begins to build trust over time and will, after three to six months, begin to be listed in Google search results. As more sites link to your site, Googles trust in your content begins to grow until eventually your site is highly ranked and all your pages are listed.

The single most defining vote of confidence in a web site is to be linked to from another site. Apart from this time consuming aspect, what else can you do to inspire trust from Google?

Add your contact details.

It is amazing how many sites fail to add their contact details. Make sure you have a contact address, email and (very importantly) telephone number listed on your website. I would suggest that you have it in the footer of your page, and on every page. This will increase trust that you are a genuine site with genuine people behind it.

Add Terms and Conditions AND a Privacy Policy

A privacy policy and terms and conditions both help to build trust. They indicate that you care about your users and their rights.

Dont change your web site structure

A redesign can be good, but make sure that you keep your original site structure. If google arrives back at your site to discover that everything has changed, and all the old links are now dead or Error404, then what do you think that does for your trust rating? Some sites seem to change for the sake of it. If you are one of those 'web fiddlers' then make sure your file structure remains intact.

Link to other sites

The worst sort of site is a dead end site. The type of web site that has no links to other pages, except buried away in a 'links' page. Google will trust you more if you provide links to other relevant sites, guide users to further information or related articles. However don't just add a huge list of links. Make sure that each one will bring value to your visitors and write a short paragraph about each link. Now your website will no longer be a dead end, but could become a major highway through the web.

Good luck.