Google Trust
Searching for my favourite uk swingers site on Google.com using the term “uk swingers” and we are at the very top of page 39. Doing the same search on Google.co.uk and we are nearer the bottom of page 50.
On Yahoo we’re result 125 on page 13 and on MSN (I do love you Microsoft!) we’re on the top of page 2!
So what’s the problem? I think it’s still a question of trust.
Here’s some of my thoughts as to how I can increase trust of the site:
- Age. Simple sitting back and letting the site get older will automatically build trust. The SEO blogs talk about 6-9 months and I know that once the site is a few years old it will be really trusted. The site is profitable so I can (and will!) wait as long as it takes but it would be nice to move a bit faster…
- Longer domain registration. I registered fabswingers.com for only 1 year. This was a mistake, I should have registered it for 10 years, I am absolutely certain this is a key factor in trust. Unfortunately Yahoo, who I registered the domain thru, doesn’t seem to allow me to extend the registration period.
- SSL certificate. I noticed that this on a site today and I guess it does make sense that sites with an SSL certificate are likely to be more serious than those without.
- Register with Google Local. I’m sure that verifying our postal address with Google will be helpful.
- Contact information. Supplying contact information both on the website and in the domain registration will probably help.
- Registering with a “trust” service. HackerSafe from ScanAlert which is about $159 per month
- Better content. More detailed and bigger content, possibly including PDF’s. Unfortunately a lot of the pages of the site are quite small and badly spelled - but this is the problem with user generated content!
- Being really careful with our linking - in particular not exchanging links with dodgy site.
- Links from high quality sites. We’ve got some but as ever we need more!
I am a bit reluctant to spend money on any of these trust items, I think that if I am going to spend money I’d rather spend it on PPC or affiliate fees that I know will generate members rather than something softer.