{"id":12974,"date":"2010-05-12T16:11:12","date_gmt":"2010-05-12T10:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/?p=12974"},"modified":"2020-04-13T13:06:44","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T07:36:44","slug":"improve-blog-credibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2010\/05\/improve-blog-credibility\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Tips to Boost Your Blog&#8217;s Credibility"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How can you improve <strong>blog credibility<\/strong>? In a world full of scams and false promises, there&#8217;s an increasing need to be more credible in today&#8217;s online atmosphere. This article will go over 7 <strong>quick tips<\/strong> to help you build and maintain a good credibility standing among your readers.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_88 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6ac6f2d00b320\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"ez-toc-cssicon\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #1a202c;color:#1a202c\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #1a202c;color:#1a202c\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6ac6f2d00b320\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2010\/05\/improve-blog-credibility\/#1_Create_a_Good_%E2%80%9CAbout%E2%80%9D_Page\" >1. Create a Good &#8220;About&#8221; Page<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2010\/05\/improve-blog-credibility\/#2_Dont_Try_to_Appear_Perfect\" >2. Don&#8217;t Try to Appear Perfect<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2010\/05\/improve-blog-credibility\/#3_Be_Bold_About_Your_Opinions\" >3. Be Bold About Your Opinions<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2010\/05\/improve-blog-credibility\/#4_Promote_High_Quality_Products\" >4. Promote High Quality Products<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2010\/05\/improve-blog-credibility\/#5_Plan_on_Monetizing_Do_It_Now\" >5. Plan on Monetizing? Do It Now.<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2010\/05\/improve-blog-credibility\/#6_Share_Your_Results\" >6. Share Your Results<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2010\/05\/improve-blog-credibility\/#7_Be_VERY_Accessible\" >7. Be VERY Accessible<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-8\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2010\/05\/improve-blog-credibility\/#How_Do_YOU_Build_Your_Credibility\" >How Do YOU Build Your Credibility?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"1_Create_a_Good_%E2%80%9CAbout%E2%80%9D_Page\"><\/span>1. Create a Good &#8220;About&#8221; Page<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12976\" title=\"hands\" src=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/hands.jpg\" alt=\"hands\" width=\"225\" height=\"150\" align=\"right\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/hands.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/hands-150x100.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/>Your blog&#8217;s &#8220;About&#8221; page is going to be one of your most visited pages on your website, second only to your homepage. Why&#8217;s that? Because your readers want to know exactly WHO&#8217;s behind all the tips and advice you&#8217;re feeding them. They want to know if you&#8217;re someone they can TRUST. Your about page is an &#8220;open mic&#8221; to showcase who you are; to set the foundation for a good relationship with your audience.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some things you can do to make your about page contribute to your credibility:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Give them as much personal information as you need to paint the picture of a REAL live person. The more real you can be to your readers, the easier it will be to trust you. Who would you trust more? MaXimus_Bl0ggR who runs the website you&#8217;re on, or Max Butterfield\u2014a 26 year old guy living in Wyoming with a wife and baby boy?<\/li>\n<li>Include photos of yourself and your family (once again, this adds to your &#8220;real&#8221; factor).<\/li>\n<li>Tell them how you got started in your niche, and the journey you&#8217;ve embarked on to get to where you&#8217;re at.<\/li>\n<li>Explain why you created your website; it helps to have good intentions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"2_Dont_Try_to_Appear_Perfect\"><\/span>2. Don&#8217;t Try to Appear Perfect<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Nobody&#8217;s perfect, so if you try to appear that way on your blog, you won&#8217;t seem very &#8220;real&#8221; to your visitors\u2014making it much harder to trust you. Tell them about some of your past failures and mistakes regarding your website topic.<\/p>\n<p>For example, my website is about making money online, and in my about page I let it be known that when I first got started, I gullibly fell into an MLM scam that caused me to lose a lot of money. Ironically, a guy who LOST a lot of money in the beginning of his journey is now instructing people how to MAKE money. This has worked wonders for my own personal credibility.<\/p>\n<p>Be yourself\u2014warts and all\u2014and your readers will appreciate you for it.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"3_Be_Bold_About_Your_Opinions\"><\/span>3. Be Bold About Your Opinions<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Don&#8217;t be afraid to express your opinion\u2014after all, that&#8217;s what blogging is all about. Sure you might lose some readers, but your true follower will stick with you. Let those who aren&#8217;t a good fit for you and your website leave&#8230; they were going to do it at some point anyway.<\/p>\n<p>The last thing you want to do is water yourself down to try and appeal to everyone; it&#8217;s just not going to happen no matter how hard you try. You&#8217;ll gain a more loyal following if you write for a <strong>specific<\/strong> group of people: the one&#8217;s who agree with your viewpoints.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"4_Promote_High_Quality_Products\"><\/span>4. Promote High Quality Products<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>This one goes without saying, but I&#8217;m constantly seeing people promote products based solely on the commission structure, and not the actual product (it should be the other way around). There&#8217;s nothing that&#8217;ll ruin your credibility faster than promoting a low quality, shady product that fails to deliver.<\/p>\n<p>You might make a few sales, but those who bought aren&#8217;t buying on your recommendation anymore. And those who already know the product isn&#8217;t good are going to lose respect for you. It&#8217;s best to promote only products you&#8217;ve personally tested, or products you are <strong>absolutely certain<\/strong> are high quality.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"5_Plan_on_Monetizing_Do_It_Now\"><\/span>5. Plan on Monetizing? Do It Now.<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Another credibility killer is drastically changing your strategy mid-way through the game. The biggest example are those who refuse to monetize to focus on &#8220;building their readership&#8221; only to do it later, causing a wave of complaints and a reduction in readership. When you don&#8217;t monetize at all, build up a readership, and then monetize later on, you appear as a &#8220;sell out&#8221; and your credibility suffers as a result.<\/p>\n<p>However, if you monetize from the beginning, your readers already expect it from you and don&#8217;t think anything of it. For example, with my mailing list, I send lots of high quality articles to them on a regular basis. But every THIRD mailer, I&#8217;ll send a product recommendation or a solid review for a product I&#8217;m affiliated with. I&#8217;ve followed this strategy from the <strong>beginning<\/strong> and have had ZERO complaints on my promotion days. If I would have started doing this out of the blue, however, it would be a much different story.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"6_Share_Your_Results\"><\/span>6. Share Your Results<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Don&#8217;t be afraid to publish your results, even when yours aren&#8217;t as good as you want them to be. You&#8217;ll always be a step above somebody, and that&#8217;s who your readers should be\u2014after all, why would you want your readers who are <strong>taking advice<\/strong> from you to be ahead of you?<\/p>\n<p>When you publish your results, not only do you appear to be more real, you become a figure for people to look up to. For example, if you run a health and fitness blog and plan on losing 50 lbs, start documenting your results and share them with your readers. Let them know your challenges; what you&#8217;re doing well with, and what your struggles are.<\/p>\n<p>Not only will your content be more interesting, you&#8217;ll also be more credible.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"7_Be_VERY_Accessible\"><\/span>7. Be VERY Accessible<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Aside from slapping up a &#8220;Contact Me&#8221; page on your blog, make an effort to <strong>encourage<\/strong> your readers to contact you with their comments and questions. Do this and you&#8217;ll have an opportunity to really connect with your audience, to find out exactly what THEY want to know.<\/p>\n<p>As an example, with just about every newsletter mailing that I send out, I remind my subscribers to hit the &#8216;Reply&#8217; button if they have any questions for me. Doing this lets them know that I&#8217;m a real person\u2014not just a website that shells out advice on a specific topic. Aside from that, make sure you are responding to all emails you receive, and to all messages you receive on your social network profiles (Twitter, Facebook, etc).<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_Do_YOU_Build_Your_Credibility\"><\/span>How Do YOU Build Your Credibility?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>While the above list will put you on the right track in terms of building and maintaining good credibility with your readers, it&#8217;s not an all-inclusive list. What things do YOU do to help boost your credibility with your readers that isn&#8217;t in the list above? How effective are your tactics?<\/p>\n<p>I encourage you to continue the discussion by sharing YOUR personal &#8220;credibility strategy&#8221; with us in the comments section.<\/p>\n<p><em>Guest post by Jonathan Beebe, an online entrepreneur who writes at MMO Work. Visit his blog to learn more about making money online.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How can you improve blog credibility? In a world full of scams and false promises, there&#8217;s an increasing need to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-12974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogging","tag-guest-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}