To get noticed online these days, you need to be continually working on your website’s SEO, which determines its ranking in search engine results.
Any search done on sites like Google will lead to thousands of results, and those that get the most attention appear on the first few pages. To stand out in your industry and ensure you are reaching your desired audience, you need to optimize your website through SEO tools such as link building.
These tools are used to increase your domain authority, which in turn impacts where you rank in search results.
Those who have some experience with SEO will understand that link building is one of the most valuable strategies to work on. With links pointing back to your website from other trustworthy sources, your domain authority increases along with your ranking in results.
It can take a lot of work to develop a link building strategy, much like any other SEO tool, so you want to make sure your efforts are worth it.
As well as working on optimizing your website to reach more people online, businesses also need to be monitoring their SEO metrics to determine whether they are being successful.
While there are many ways you can do this based on your particular SEO strategy, determining your trust flow score will assess whether your link building efforts are worthwhile.
In this guide, we are sharing everything you need to know about developing your Majestic trust flow score and how you can improve your link building campaign for better results.
SEO Metrics For Links
Obtaining high-quality links pointing back to your website from other sources is a great tool for SEO.
However, not all links provide the same value, and some can even impact your search engine ranking based on their quality and trust.
You want to ensure that the links you are using as part of your SEO strategies are working with Google’s guidelines for a higher ranking. This can be accessed through your trust flow score.
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About Majestic Trust Flow
When it comes to assessing your link building efforts and whether these are successful for SEO, you will need to become familiar with Majestic SEO.
While there are other tools out there that can be used to assess SEO metrics, Majestic is one of the best and most effective for these specific elements.
This tool is used to assess metrics such as your Trust Flow and Citation Flow, both of which refer to links from other websites back to your own.
These two specific metrics are increasing in popularity in the SEO arena because of how effective they can be on search engines. Majestic Trust Flow and Citation Flow allow you to determine the current standing of your website in terms of both external and internal links, as well as highlighting areas that need additional work.
Your domain’s Majestic trust flow score determines how trustworthy your site appears to Google based on backlinks and other SEO metrics and, therefore, its ranking in search results.
What Are Trust Flow Scores?
The Trust Flow of a website is the trademark of Majestic, which is a tool used to determine the trustworthiness of a website and, therefore, its ranking in search results.
Trust Flow was introduced by Majestic in 2012 and continues to be a sign of a site’s performance in Google and other search engines results. It determines the quality and trustworthiness of a site based on the quality of backlinks directed back to the main domain.
It works by assessing the trustworthiness of links shared between websites.
For example, when site A links to site B, it is not only sharing an audience but also its reputation. By connecting with another website, you are essentially endorsing this platform and, therefore, putting your reputation on the line.
The trust flow is shared between these two websites’ internal pages through links, and this is the metric provided by Majestic.
While Trust Flow is often the main focus for website owners, it is not the only thing accessed by Majestic nor the only tool that impacts SEO performance.
As we have mentioned, the two metrics are closely related and are assessed as part of the Majestic Trust Flow and focus on the site’s backlinks.
- Trust Flow
- Citation Flow
While the two are related, website owners and SEO experts need to avoid mixing them up.
What Is Trust Flow?
As we have mentioned, the trust flow score of a site indicates its trustworthiness and, therefore, indicates its performance on search engines.
Trust flow is essentially the measurement of the number of clicks a site gets from other websites, and your score will increase with a high-quality link strategy. The score given is between 0 to 100.
Much like how connecting with low-quality links has negative SEO, poor-quality or questionable links also impact your trust flow score.
To determine the trust flow score, the quality of links pointing back to your web pages is assessed.
How Is Trust Flow Calculated?
Trustworthiness is an important factor in the SEO world, and while Majestic Trust Flow is not directly connected to Google’s rankings, it can be a good indicator of how your site will perform in results.
The perceived trustworthiness is assessed by Majestic based on the reputation and quality of links pointing from other sites. This data can then be used to influence other SEO methods you may be using, highlighting areas where your site needs additional work.
Majestic’s Trust Flow is an indication of how websites are perceived and, therefore, whether you want to be closely linked to them or not.
Your site’s score indicates how many trustworthy sites are connected to yours, and the higher it is, the more quality connections you have. This can be provided for any web page on your site and highlights the relative ranking potential of your domain.
What Is Citation Flow?
Trust flow is not the only thing assessed by Majestic in terms of backlinks, even if it may be the main concern for most website owners.
Citation flow is another scoring process done by Majestic, but unlike your Trust Flow, Citation Flow does not refer to the quality of backlinks but rather the popularity.
While Trust Flow is focused on whether a site is reliable and authoritative, Citation Flow determines whether it is used by your target market and how many clicks these links provide.
A web page can have a very high citation flow yet a low trust flow score due to the use of toxic backlinks, which may be popular.
A page with more links pointing to it will have a high citation flow, regardless of the quality of these links.
What Is Topical Trust Flow?
This is essentially another step in determining the trust flow metric of a website.
This is a way of providing a more accurate measurement of trust flow by assessing the relevancy of links, as well as the reputation of the site.
Topical trust flow examines the relevancy of backlinks to a specific page and is, therefore, very useful for SEO and providing a deeper look into the performance of your website.
If you measure trust flow, you should also measure the topical trust flow score to help you remain focused on topical relevance among your different SEO tools. While trustworthiness is an essential factor in the ranking of search results, so is its relevance, and to ensure the best performance of your site, you need to combine both.
Evaluating your topical trust flow score is a way to determine the success of your current SEO methods as well as highlight where improvements can be made.
The topical trust flow SEO of your website can be improved through your outreach strategy if you focus on high-quality and relevant websites to link with.
Much like all metrics offered by Majestic, there is a deep connection between trust flow and topical trust flow that can influence your SEO methods from here on out.
How Does Trust Flow and Citation Flow Work Together?
Trust flow and citation flow are closely linked and work in tandem for most websites.
Usually, if your trust flow scores increase, so will the citation flow, but this is not always going to happen in reverse. This is where the trust flow to citation flow ratio comes into play, as this shows the relation between the two on any given web page, and the higher the ratio, the more trustworthy the site is.
While both trust flow and citation flow are important for SEO, digital marketers know that it is better to have a good trust flow score over a higher citation flow.
Different Values
This is because the trustworthiness of a website is always going to be more valuable in terms of SEO than how many links or traffic the same page gets. Any site can have a high citation flow score, as it simply requires a lot of links and traffic.
A good citation flow score can come from an effective marketing campaign, but it can also come from linking malicious websites, which is why the focus in terms of the trust flow to citation flow ratio should always be on maintaining a higher trust flow score.
Even though more links can contribute to increasing the citation flow metrics of a website, it may not move the trust flow checkers at all and, therefore, not impact your search results page ranking.
Which One Is More Important?
Obtaining a good trust flow score is more difficult than increasing your citation flow because this requires valuable relationships to be developed between websites as opposed to simply obtaining links.
Getting a high trust flow score can be made even more difficult when we consider topical relevance as well, which is just as important for SEO as trustworthiness.
All of this goes to say that working on the trust flow of your website should be the main focus over citation flow, but this does not make the connection between the two obsolete.
What Is A Good Trust Flow Score?
As we have mentioned, trust flow can be scored between 0 and 100 based on the trustworthiness of links.
Good Trust Flow: Higher than 50
This score is given to websites with the highest level of trust, such as major names like YouTube, Yahoo, and LinkedIn.
Average Trust Flow: 10 to 50
This is an average rating for trustworthiness and indicates that your site may need some more work to perform better. Most ecommerce websites fall into this range due to the structuring of their platforms.
Low trust flow: Under 10
This is the lowest level of trust that can be offered by Majestic and is a sign that your website is performing poorly. Connecting with websites with this kind of score is going to have negative impacts on your SEO and overall performance and should be avoided.
Scores In Summary
In most cases, a good trust flow score for websites is anything higher than 50. This is considered to be an excellent score on Majestic SEO, but there are other trust flow tools out there you can use with a different scoring system.
A trust flow score below 10 is considered poor in terms of SEO. Brand new sites may receive this kind of score when they are providing backlinks simply because they have not developed a reputation yet.
Flow metrics like this are something to keep in mind when developing your website’s marketing campaign, as they can determine who you want to work with.
What Is A Good Trust To Citation Flow Ratio?
In terms of the ratio between trust flow and citation flow, the best score for most websites is anything close to 1.
With a ratio of Majestic citation flow closest to 1, a web page is shown to have more authority and trustworthiness than just clicks alone. A ratio of 0.5 is average.
Those with a higher citation flow show that they have more links and traffic but not the good reputation required by search engines.
How To Use SEO Metrics For Betting Ranking
Now that you understand what each of these scores means and how they are calculated, it is time to take this information to your marketing team.
Determining the trustworthiness of a website should always be your main concern when developing links with them or working on your link building campaign. However, as we have learned in this guide, trust flow is not the only thing that matters.
For example, when reaching out to another site to offer a guest post, you want to ensure not only that this is a reputable site but also that the topical trust flow falls under the same niche as your work.
Guest posting is just one example of link building tactics that are required for SEO and can also influence your trust flow scores.
For topical trust flow SEO, consider other sites used by your target market and those within your niche.
It is always best to connect with highly trustworthy sites within your niche to perform well both in terms of Majestic SEO and on search engines.
Summary
Link building is one of the most effective tools for SEO, but it can also take a long time to get right.
Using Majestic SEO, you can determine whether your backlink profile is beneficial to the ranking of your site on search engines or whether it needs more work.
There are three main scores given by this platform that can determine the success of your website.
These scores are given based on the trustworthiness and relevancy of links, as well as how much traffic is obtained through them. A good balance of all three offers the best results for your website and can be achieved with careful SEO practices.
Scott Calland is a highly regarded content specialist with an English Degree. He has a passion for creating compelling content as a UK journalist that engages, informs, and entertains readers. With over 10 years of experience in creating news publications as a reporter, Scott has developed a keen eye for detail and a deep understanding of how to craft content that resonates with audiences. Working closely with data analysts Scott’s research on topics is unrivalled for latest news updates.
Scott is also an investor in Searcharoo.