FreeYour siteAbout 35 min

Link Proof to the Place That Issued It

Every license, award, rating and membership on your site links to the office or company that issued it. Not to your own page about it.

By Anthony Limpert, founder of Clickflame

Why This Matters

The worst mistake is a badge nobody can check. A row of logos with no links reads as made up, and some are. If you show a license, an award or a rating you did not earn, you lose the customer and may break the law. Proof only counts when a stranger can verify it in a click.

✓ How To Do It

Open your site and list every trust claim on it. Licenses, insurance, bonds, awards, ratings, memberships, years in business and any as seen on logo.
For each one, find who issued it. A license comes from your state licensing board. A membership comes from the group. An award comes from the group that gave it.
Look yourself up on that issuer's own lookup page. Copy the link to your record, or to the search page if the record has no stable link.
Link the claim to that page. Put the license number in the text, so a reader can type it into the board's lookup.
For an award, link the page where the issuer names you. If no page names you, or you can't find one, take the award off your site.
For ratings, link the live profile and show a number only if you can keep it current. A star count from last year is a stale claim. Do not make up a star rating of your own.
Remove every badge you did not earn or cannot show proof for. Remove any that expired.
Remove or fix any claim of years in business that is longer than the records show.
Put a recheck on your calendar every three months. Licenses and insurance renew, and so should your page.

Done WhenA sheet of every trust claim on the site with the issuer link beside it, and a list of badges removed.

Reference List

Sources

Tips & Pitfalls

Never link proof to your own site or to a blog that talks about the award. Only the issuer counts.
A fake license, fake crew or fake years in business is the quickest way to lose a profile and a customer.
If the issuer has no public page, say what you can prove and skip the logo.

Done with this step? Mark it complete to track your campaign progress.