The Trust Quotient in Link Building – Tips on Building a Trustworthy Link

The typical bricks and mortar businesses thrive on reputation or goodwill. The hard work that goes in building the reputation of a company/brand has inspired many a stories and budding entrepreneurs.

It is the stuff that history is made of. Think Apple and you know you have the best of technology. Think Mercedes and you imagine burning the tracks in a sports car!

These brands and many more are trustworthy, in the sense that they have paid attention to the minutest detail and have hardly slipped on their promises.

They have built on a repertoire of trust! They know the worth of a trust the customer has on their abilities to deliver. That’s their goodwill over the years.

Online businesses are no exception to the rule. They also thrive on the trust factor; a trust that surpasses the physical presence of the company. Trust in online businesses becomes even more relevant than in traditional brick and mortar businesses. So, it becomes imperative for a business to rank high on the Search Engine Pages (SERPs).

What is trust, then?

Search Engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN put a premium on the links that a website provides. For these search engines the trust factor depends upon the accuracy and reliability of the information provided by the websites, in order for it to rank on its top pages. In fact Google puts a lot of emphasis on the Page Rank of a website.

But again how do they measure trust as the search engines have algorithms to work with?

There is no measurable criterion. They follow certain set of guidelines to list the trustworthiness of a site. These could include factors like:

• Link/s to another trustworthy/established/popular sites
• Status of the site as an authority and outside links to it
• The growth pattern in link ageing and link popularity
• Whether it qualifies as a niche topical authority
• Link Ageing – how old is the linking history

The list may include other factors like its history in ranking, link building, content etc for evaluation as a trust worthy site.

At the same time, a new concept that has taken root is about “TrustRank”. This comes in to play most of the time (which is always!) when the search engines employ editors to monitor and control spam in a site’s content.

Therefore, while building links and make the most of the listings on the SERPs, certain guidelines might prove useful:

Do:

• Acquire a natural pattern to your link building
• Link to quality and topical authority sites within the niche
• Acquire best links asap as link ageing is a factor taken into consideration
• Use two to three links at the max.

Don’t:

• Link to sites that have dubious link patterns (read spamming)
• Use irrelevant content i.e. do not write just anything to acquire links
• Use keywords that are not searched well and just for the sake because they show greater results

You can add your own list to these, as and when you start link building.

Remember, link building is as good as relationship building – the base of which is trust. Keep your promises and you will never fall short of trust!

Image Credit:Rudy Miculescu