There are a million sites that will tell you about how content is king, that if you don’t have great content, useful links and that it is updated regularly you wont get anywhere on the search engine rankings. Search engine optimisation is largely about getting the content of the site right, written right, structured correctly, linked well with just the right balance of key words and correct use of linking words. But what else is there?

It does not matter how well you have done in the content department if the search engines do not trust your site. Trust, just like any other industry is something that has to be built. It cannot be installed, upgraded or modified to fit your requirements. Content may be the golden goose, but the trust it builds is the golden egg that no one can buy.

Without trust there is nothing

Trust is not merely built by being around for long periods of time that would negate all new comers to the internet business world. Trust can be built. The greatest attribute to web business is the easy connectivity to the customers. This is not like and in-store ballots box where customers can lay their complaints and suggestions that never actually get to any one that can do anything about it.

The internet allows you to have contact with users instantly, have blogs, surveys, e-mails, opinion polls, all of which will help you better understand your customers and change the way you do things for the better. The key to this relationship is that it is not left one sided, get back to those who have commented or given suggestions, thank them, and acknowledge them. This will build the relationship, get your brand known, liked and trusted.

How to not win the trust of search engines

Search engine optimization is about the do’s and the donts, and when trying to improve your trust factor with the search engines there are some clearly defined donts.

The list starts simply with content, if your content is overloaded with keywords, your landing page has links with perfectly placed keywords, and the site seems oddly SEO perfectly built, the search engines will be less likely to send user to your site. The next point is more obvious. If your links are know as distrusted sites, then the search engines logic would be that your site would be similar, and therefore not worth trusting, so select you links carefully.

Search engines can also judge how good your site is base on the length visitors stay, more short then long can only lead to one conclusion. The next two are technical issues, if your site has lots of broken links, down times, 404 errors etc, then Google will know that your site is not worth trusting yet. Issues with the back button, if your site interferes in anyway with this action, its a deal breaker for most search engines, never let this happen.

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