2009 was not the year of the elephant or year of the chicken it was the year of “Trust”. After getting Chris Brogans book “Trust Agents” I started to read it and as I was going along I felt as if he was talking about me and my websites. In a way he was, as most of my content websites are built around the readers and providing them with information that they can use.
By doing this I have built a trust over about 8 years on one of my better sites. I have an automotive site that was built over the years where people are sending me questions about their car and I answer it. I will Google for the answers (if I don't already know the answer) and then write a page so others that have the same problem don't have to send me an email.
Between all of this I ended up with a website that helps people with older models to get those hard to find parts. I have become an authority on this topic and usually when I send someone to an auto parts site they usually buy the parts as I am a trusted source.
If you are not building trust on your websites you are missing out big time. Now I get emails from readers saying thanks for the info and that they are forwarding my sites to others. Some of these readers belong to car clubs for my brand and they tell people by the hundreds about my site. Oops scratch that I meant OUR site. The website is all about them and their car.
What I did is ask people to send in pictures of their car and any info they want and I make them a web page. They bookmark it and send it to their friends. Why its all about “Trust”. You may hear webmasters say they want the consumer off their site asap and on to the merchants site but that doesn't always apply. I would rather get return visitors over and over again. My site visitor on average goes through 10-20 pages on my site. These visitors get to see the ads a lot more and take action. They come back and buy over and over. They enjoy the site and “Trust” me that I would never place any type of crap on the site just to make a buck.
I am now getting emails asking for when my next newsletter is coming out, I get 10 a week asking this and another 25-50 signing up for my newsletter every week. Why because I am a trusted source.
This past week OUR site was added to the main website for this car by the manufacturer. They linked up to us on their resources page as a trusted authority for people with older models. That doesn't happen without having a trust factor.