How to Become a Trusted Site for Google?

People talk about TrustRank (that is from Yahoo rather than Google) and about a factor of trust assigned to some sites which place them at top of results pages. How to get that trust from Google?

Your site can become trusted in two phases. In a first step you have to gain authority among readers. Then it will be readers who will make your site trusted for Google, by citing its content. A list of ways to achieve this objective is given by Google.

Trust and authority

Trust and authority are two factors that account for the ranking in pages of results.
- Authority is related to an author and to readers rather than to search engines.
- Trust is associated with a site as a whole and promotes its position in search results.

To be trusted, you must at first have authority as an author. It is among readers that the authority is earned and there are readers who will let the site trusted by Google, by quoting it and creating hyperlinks or bookmarks, with steadily increasing traffic of the site.

How to get a reputation?

This question is answered in a slide show just put online by Matt Cutts.

• Provide a useful service.
• Conduct original research, or a report.
• Provide good information.
• Be creative in finding a niche.
• Add some code if possible.
• Add a blog to the site if it is not a blog.
• Make lists. For example: The 10 factors of authority.
• Encourage controversy.
• Use Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed.

Apart from these factors on the content given by Matt Cutts, one can cite factors on the form:

• Have a page about the author (this may be a link to Knol or Facebook). The address of the site may be so useful.
• An "About" page describing the site.
• A stylish design.
• A clear writting style.

References

• Straight from Google. What you need to know.
  The slides give multiple tips on SEO too.