Visibility is changing.
We build what’s coming.

Alex and Cornelius dominate the affiliate market.

Alex, then part of the Chiang Mai SEO scene in Thailand, takes off with affiliate websites. Influenced by a strong network of international top SEOs, he bets primarily on backlinks as the key success factor. What works in the highly competitive US market works even better in Germany: through his results as an off-page expert, Alex rises to become the “backlink king” of the German SEO community.

Alex notices Cornelius, who runs a portfolio of successful affiliate projects built purely on strong on-page SEO. The synergy of Alex’s link building and Cornelius’s content strategy catapults their joint projects to the top of Google, even in fiercely contested niches.

Projects with sometimes more than 100,000 visitors a month bring in seven-figure revenues. As pioneers in the CBD space, they lay the foundation for Germany’s largest portal on the health trend of the decade.

Ambitious coachees and the link-building revolution.

Through his coaching, Alex gets to know Max and Nikita. The two run affiliate projects and look after clients with their full-service SEO support. Step by step, the ambitious duo sells off their own websites to focus more fully on their SEO agency Seolusion.

The USA leads the way.

In the USA, the first serious link marketplace takes off. Where backlinks had previously been traded inefficiently, opaquely and barely scalably on social media, just as in Germany, it now happens professionally with modern software. Independently of one another, Alex, Max and Nikita arrive at the same idea: to bring the concept of a professional backlink marketplace to Germany.

New synergies, trial and error.

Internally, the link-building processes already exist to supply their own websites and selected clients. Without much hesitation, Alex, Cornelius, Max and Nikita decide to build a marketplace together on top of that. Hurdles in software development, scaling problems and fresh highs for the affiliate projects push the vision of a modern link marketplace aside, at first.

The birth of Trustfactory.

The team launches the marketplace under the Trustfactory brand. More than 2,000 registrations and a flood of orders push the project into full focus. The decision is made to merge Seolusion and Trustfactory: the explosively growing link marketplace and the mature full-service SEO offering are united under one brand.

Trustfactory now stands for holistic success on Google through data-driven SEO and content strategies. Client wins and flourishing affiliate projects prove the now thirteen-person team right.

Alex and Cornelius continue the affiliate business in a separate publishing company, while Max and Nikita work on Trustfactory with full focus. The shared vision: package SEO into systematizable, scalable processes, become the market leader and build a product so good that their own publishing company can fully cover its SEO needs as a client.

Growth.

With 20 employees by now, permanently looking after more than 50 clients, Trustfactory moves into its new office in Mannheim.

Market disruption.

Contrary to Trustfactory’s data-driven approach, competitors work inefficiently, billing for years of muddled on-page work or selling fixed-price packages without ever analyzing the starting situation. To the displeasure of some peers, Trustfactory spreads the counter-message: through its own events, the acquisition of the largest SEO communities on Facebook and targeted advertising.

With tools developed in-house, Trustfactory lifts data-based search engine optimization to a new level: no tinkering by gut feeling, but transparent costs, realistic forecasts and well-founded measures. To maximize shared success, the team only takes on clients who fit the full-service concept perfectly. It heads into year-end with 25 employees and over 100 clients.

Systematic success.

The data-based concept, fully systematizing SEO through modern software and adaptive processes, pays off completely. We identify and implement exactly what it takes to reach each client’s goals. We welcome 50 new clients and grow to 30 employees.

Market leader, widening the lead.

Trustfactory becomes the market leader; no pure SEO service in Germany is larger. As another moat, the in-house publishing company is expanded: it serves as a sandbox for new SEO measures and lets clients secure exclusive link placements.

The brand message is carried by professional image films, video reviews from clients and a major website relaunch. With its own YouTube channel, Trustfactory takes on the market on the educational front: hard SEO facts, interviews and insights into company processes.

An in-house team of authors extends the value chain, and clients now order content at the highest level. The numbers speak for themselves: 43 employees, more than 200 clients, at peak over 1,000 client inquiries a month, from which the team carefully selects the right partners.

5x and a full pipeline of ideas.

The ambition stays high: to multiply revenue. The idea pipeline is brimming with new projects and technologies the Trustfactory team is working on at full speed.

Trustfactory 2.0.

By now Trustfactory counts more than 310 clients from over 200 industries, and the Mannheim office grows by another floor. Trustfactory produces and publishes Germany’s first SEO documentary, free of charge.

From several strategic investments in agencies for conversion optimization, performance marketing and creative work, a true agency network has emerged: with ex-Googlers who support Google Ads, and elite designers and web developers who deliver every project with maximum conversion performance.

Today Trustfactory operates as a corporate group, working together centrally at one location in Mannheim, and stands for holistic success on Google: with high-converting websites, Google Ads and SEO, one market leader after another emerges systematically, all from a single source, with the best experts in every single area.