Tip #2 credibility – Making content attractive

I will continue my series on making content attractive. Today I will cover a very important factor, the credibility. We don’t like a speaker because of his great speech ability but because of the trust, same happens for content. It is surely the job of the reader to check the credibility of the content but as a content writer it is my job to make the job easier for my reader. It will be unfair if I write the whole article. I will quote Stanford researches.

1000s of results for one search, 1000 different website saying different things, and people what to check the trustworthiness of the content. How to improve the credibility? Here is a small list:

  1. Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site. (Give links, author’s pic and details)
  2. Show that there’s a real organization behind your site. (Good logo, about us page, linking to BBB etc)
  3. Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide. (Tell them stories, show testimonials)
  4. Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site.
  5. Make it easy to contact you. (All type of contacts with proper names and pics.)
  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). (Show the date when it was updated, right there with proper link title who updated or reviewed it)
  9. Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers).
  10. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem. (NO GRAMMATICAL MISTAKES ALLOWED for a content writer)

Check in them details at http://credibility.stanford.edu/guidelines/index.html. Do comment as there are more things that can help us increase the credibility. I will also pen down some examples here (wish I had some more time today).

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