Why Should I Believe You? The Credibility of Blogging
A blog is considered a credible source of information because the review or recommendation has been posted by someone who is just like everyone else, not a marketer trying to sell something. However it is obvious that there are blogs that we cannot consider to be a credible resource. So what factors make us consider a blog credible?
The Slideshare presentation “What Makes a Website Credible?” suggests that web credibility is based on the formula, perceived trustworthiness + perceived expertise = perceived credibility. Without either the belief of trustworthiness or expertise the website is not thought of as credible by visitors.
Perceived expertise can be attributed to how narrow the focus of the blog the post topics are, as suggested by the entry “SMB4: Bloggers – Credibility VS Popularity”. A blogger who posts about a certain niche topic, depending on the content of the posts, comes across as knowledgeable in that topic. In contrast someone who posts on whatever is on their mind and might not have two posts on the same topic likely will come across as less knowledgeable on the subject. Expertise is essential to gaining credibility whether it is gained through education, experience, or through a connection with the reader, such as a shared interest.
Being discovered as being paid to post about certain products or services can take away from the perceived trustworthiness of your blog. By taking money for endorsements a blogger can be thought of as promoting things they know nothing about or even dislike in order to get paid. However a paid blogger who has the other factor in the equation, expertise, and has a history of saying what they feel, as described in the post “How Much Do Top Tier Bloggers and Social Media Consultants Get Paid? We Asked Them!” would be perceived as being more trustworthy than a blog that promotes anything and everything.
So as the Businessweek blog, Blogspotting, mentioned in the post “The blogosphere is not ‘credible’” blogs cannot be generalized as credible however individual blogs can be assessed for credibility.
Is your site a little less than fresh?
Image from Conversational Media Marketing
There are many ways to keep your website fresh including press releases, blog posts, and newsletters. For a list of ideas for adding content to your site see Part 10 of the article “Developing Your Website: Tools for Women“. An important point made in the blog entry “Why Your Web Site Needs an Oil Change” about frequent updating is that if your site maintenance is outsourced it can be costly to update your site. One solution to this cost is a website powered by a content management system so that new content can be added from within the company into the website template. If you don’t have time to update frequently, RSS feeds can be a way to keep your site fresh without writing new content. An RSS feed inserts information from another site into your site, like headlines with links to articles or blog entries detailed instructions of how RSS should be added to a site are described in the blog entry “RSS or a Website Freshness!”.
A fresh site keeps visitors coming back to check on the latest information, where a site that is not regularly updated will lose repeat audience, as explained in the article “7 tips to make your web site fail!”. Another reason to keep the content on your website fresh is that it affects where your site falls in search results. People are more likely to link to your site if there is new content on it, and the number of pages that link to a site effect how it ranks in search engine results. A Google patent recently divulged that when a page was last updated is included in the algorithm that determines search result rankings. Both ideas are explained in the blog entry “Google Patent Reminds Us To Keep It Fresh”.
Finally how often do you need to update your site for it’s freshness to be effective? The “Fresh Content” entry on the Web Site SEO and Technologies blog suggests that you check how often your competitors’ websites are updated and add new content more frequently in order to raise your search results above theirs.
