Stanford Guidelines for Website Credibility

The guys at Stanford university have put together guidelines for a website to follow in order to achieve maximum credibility with the users.

Credibility itself is more important then any amount of search engine optimization or other tricks you may have. Adobe.com never run an internet SEO campaign yet they are one of the most credible sites on the internet (and best ranked too). In other words credibility equals ranking.

Stanford Guidelines For Website Credibility

1. Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site.
2. Show that there's a real organization behind your site.
3. Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide.
4. Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site.
5. Make it easy to contact you.
6. Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose).
7. Make your site easy to use -- and useful.
8. Update your site's content often (at least show it's been reviewed recently).
9. Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers).
10. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem.

You can read the original Stanford article here.

Suggested reading:

• How to effectively use social media sites from a Webmaster perspective
• Alexa new ranking change, Google on the move?
• Check if the post is older than X days before placing ads