Below are nine trust symbols you can use on your site to encourage customer trust and boost conversion rates.

1) Security Symbols

The most obvious form of trust symbol is a security badge or seal, indicating that your check-out process is secure and has been verified by a trusted third party. You can purchase security badges from companies like Verisign and McAfee (provided, naturally, that you meet the requirements). Place these badges on your check-out pages to show customers their private data is safe. If your site uses SSL, you’ll also need an SSL certificate.

2) Customer Logos

Have well-known customers? Show them off by displaying their logos on your site. A high-profile client acts as a vote of confidence in your products or services.

3) Testimonials

Testimonials go a step beyond customer logos and show prospects what clients really think of your products. Key quotes can be displayed next to logos to demonstrate customer satisfaction. For example, DIYSEO a SEO software company that offers a free SEO report features testimonials from customers on their homepage.

4) Award Badges

If you win any kind of industry award, by all means take advantage of it and place a winner’s badge on your site. A corporate website is no place to be humble!

5) Membership Badges

If you belong to any industry organizations, look for badges you can display on your site. This is another way of showing your business is vetted by authorities in your industry. If you don’t belong to relevant organizations, investigate what’s available in your space.

6) Certification Badges

Though they require time and money, certifications are worthwhile in many service, consulting, and technical industries. If this is relevant to your business, pursue getting members of your team certified and then display badges so visitors will know your employees are up to snuff.

7) Transparent Policies

“Be transparent about your privacy policies, return or refund policies, subscription policies, satisfaction guarantees, cancellation fees, and any other policies of this nature,” explains Sol Hudson of USA News Online. Clear language in these areas shows you have nothing to hide and instills trust in prospective customers.

8 ) Free Trial

A free trial button is an indication that you stand behind your product and trust that people who try it will want to buy. Not all products lend themselves to this, but many software products are natural candidates for a free trial offer. For example, DIYSEO offers a free trial of its search engine optimization software and Web promotion software to help SMBs with small business SEO and to conduct a SEO site audit.

9) Press Mentions

Like testimonials, positive coverage by the media shows your web visitors that you’re worthy of attention. If your products, your website or your blog is mentioned by a popular news source, consider using their logo on your site as another trust symbol.

2008 came along, and the market began to grow steadily. Small business marketing news site, 1 Business Guide, rightly declared that CRO is key to achieving significant ROI on online advertising spend. And a few optimization vendors popped up here and there.

Then came 2009. Momentum roared, even with the world’s financial crisis. After all, conversion optimization is the best way to get the most revenue from the least spend.

Finally in 2010, conversion optimization fully-arrived. Post-click sessions became a standard part of marketing conferences and many industry publications launched conversion rate optimization columns and features.

So what does 2011 hold? Our prediction at Search Marketing Zone is that the momentum continues and CRO will be bigger than ever.

The importance of consistently high rankings in search engines such as Google and Bing should not be underestimated, with Google in particular having become a highly influential factor in determining the online commercial success of websites. This isn’t just relevant to certain industries, but is applicable across the board. As more and more businesses across diverse industries have come to realise the importance of online traffic in the lead generation process, the amount of spending within the search industry has grown significantly.

The recent announcements that social networking activity can also have an effect on search rankings is also likely to stir interest in the business world. SEM industry experts expect to see a large number of businesses that have previously invested their digital marketing efforts in online communities now moving to maximize their visibility in the search market using both social media and SEO activity.

News Tip from Professional SEO Consultant Ken Lyons of MetaRocket SEO, a SEO company in Boston.

According to Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz, Mr Cutts announced on his Twitter page that the company would seek to address the issue in the first quarter of next year.

Using the practice as part of an online marketing services strategy is against Google’s webmaster guidelines and could lead to a site being removed from the firm’s index, Mr Schwartz pointed out.

He added that it is difficult to tell exactly what Mr Cutts meant from his brief message, but cautioned any companies that currently use the technique they “may have to be on the look out”.

Earlier this month, Google also announced it had made changes to its algorithm to combat negative search engine optimization techniques, following a New York Times report on a company that deliberately used bad publicity to boost its rankings on the site. Google, though, is a proponent of “White Hat” SEO consulting techniques.

Mr Allen submitted his amended suit to a judge in Seattle yesterday (December 28th) after a previous attempt was dismissed on December 10th for being too vague.

He claims 11 companies, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and Apple infringed on patents held by his now-defunct firm Interval and has now provided additional information on exactly what products and services he believes violate his copyright.

Some of the technologies Mr Allen alleges use his patents include several features used by internet marketing services and search engines, with the Seattle Times reporting it includes “systems that automatically call up and display related content”.

Although the publication stated his case is a “long shot”, it could be worth up to $500 million (£324.9 million) if it is successful.

As well as co-founding Microsoft, Mr Allen is estimated to have given over $1 billion to various philanthropic causes.