The Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval

If you’ve been following my blog/tweets at all lately, you know that I was featured in this month’s edition of Good Housekeeping. This is really very very funny because I have 5 year old daughter and my house constantly looks as if a whirlwind just hit…

One of my favorite clients, communications guru Liz Gurthridge suggested that I write a little bit about the power of the Good Housekeeping “seal of approval”. When I was little I actually used to think about the seal of approval and the Good Housekeeping test kitchens. I had visions of rooms with rows and rows of ranges and women dressed in pink dresses and lace aprons testing out all the recipes in the magazine to make sure they were good enough to eat. Although I don’t know very many people who read Good Housekeeping (I was actually surprised at how many people spotted my article though…) — the power of the seal lives on. The seal (like being favorably reviewed in Consumer Reports) lends some important “social proof” to a product’s claims. And, although Yellow Highlighter didn’t receive the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval — the fact that I was featured in the magazine has had some great spillover into my business.

The idea of a seal of approval is very powerful. According to a recent issue of Fast Company, Chlorox recently sought the Sierra Club’s seal of approval for their products. This idea is very easily transferrable to the Web. This works for both companies. Chlorox gets third party validation that their products are environmentally friendly. The Sierra Club gets recognized as a leading expert on the environment.

Seals of approval work very well in a virtual world where third party validation (internet marketers call this “social proof”) is very important. You see this at work in the “badges” that people display on their blogs. PoshMama and BlogHer rate blogs. If you pass their tests, you get to display their seal. The seal is an advertisement for the blog and validation that you know your stuff. I was trained as a virtual assistant by AssistU – as a graduate, I am entitled to display their seal on my website. The seal links back to a page with a list of AssistU graduates. When clients see my site, they know that I’ve invested some time and effort into my continuing education.

Do you have an seals of approval on your site? Do you offer one as part of your business?