Trust is an important issue in all our lives. If we trust the person telling us something we tend to believe them. The same is true online; if we trust the web site we are looking at, we believe what it says.

If someone you meet recommends a product or service to you – and you trust the individual – you will consider what they say, perhaps even checking out the item. However, recommendations from people we do not trust don’t get a second glance.

Online, if a web site you trust has a link to another site, there’s an increased chance you will check out the recommended web site – simply because you trust the site making the recommendation. So, if you want your web site to get more visitors you need more links on trusted sites; or more mentions on the blogs and social networking pages of trusted individuals.

Many Internet marketers will have you believe that getting links on other sites is valuable to your Google ranking position. That may well be true – but Google ranking is not as valuable to your business as “human ranking”. The more your site is recommended by real people, rather than link lists, the better. Links in context are the most valuable; being referred by a real person as opposed to a site gain you more focused interest.

So, how can you get the right links? You need to search the web for people who might like to write about your business and recommend its products and services. Clearly you can do this search yourself – or you could use products, such as Arelis, that automate much of the process for you.

Also, you should try to get links within blogs. These are perceived as more “human” than general web sites – they reflect the individual writing the material more. Hence links within blogs have considerable “trust value”. One way you can achieve this is by getting your comment accepted on highly trusted blogs. Again you can search for these yourself, or you can use software to achieve this. Only today I discovered the best program I’ve seen that can help you get high value blog comments published, with appropriate links to your web site. The program is called “Real Link Finder” and amazingly it’s free of charge. A great program that will provide real value in helping you achieve more links on trusted sites.

Of course, there is a spin-off benefit as well. Gaining links on trusted sites will bring you traffic from people who follow links from sites and blogs they respect. But the extra links will also help you gain search engine ranking, giving your traffic a further boost. These days, I find that many business neglect links and focus instead on a host of technical “solutions”. However, links are really nothing more than “word of mouth” – and that’s the most powerful kind of advertising we know about.