There is a lot of talk about authority when dealing with Search Engine Optimisation and the importance of this authority in the search engines for achieving high rankings in the SERPs. So I thought I would cover Authority in the next instalment of SEO Speak.
What is authority when we talk about SEO?
Consider Authority sources in a non internet context and you think of people who are a trusted resource on a subject matter, for example a professional body or experienced professional. We seen these “authorities” on the news commenting on pieces related to their specialist areas of expertise.
In search engine optimisation Authority is similar. The search engines look at the relevant content you have on a website against a search criteria or keyword. The more unique content you have about a subject the more authority you are likely to have.
So what makes authority in SEO?
Things that can help the authority of your site include:
- Content - if you have a 1 page website with 200 words on it, you are less likely to rank well against a 3,000 page website with 10,000 words on it. When writing content it is important to stay on topic and use unique content. Consider content marketing as a method of regularly adding content to your website as freshness of content is also important.
- Optimisation - ensuring all of your pages have unique title tags, meta descriptions and use your keywords is an important part of your optimisation.
- Links from External sites – the number of links coming to the site from other websites is important too. Links http://www.vertical-leap.co.uk/blog/there-is-no-alternative-to-link-building/ from other authority sites using keywords as the anchor text will help the search engines see that other websites view you as an authority about your specialist area.
- Website Structure – if the search engines, and your users, can’t find all the relevant content on your website, because pages aren’t linked to well then this content won’t be working hard for you. make sure your internal linking structure sensibly links pages together and doesn’t take the user down a dead end.
Things than can negatively affect your authority include:
- Broken Links – making sure your site has no broken links should be a regular maintenance check you carry out anyway, but if it isn’t I’d add it to your to do list.
- Duplicate content – using content from another website, in whole or in part could damage your website and is frowned on by the search engines. It’s also important to make sure other people aren’t using your content on their website.
- Doorway pages – creating a website with only a few pages on it with the sole perpose of driving more visitors to your main website, again this is frowned on by Google as being manipulative and not delivering useful content to users.
This is just an overview of what creates authority, as there are many items contained in the Search Engine algorithms, which help to determine where a site will rank. As these algorithms change there are tweaks to the importance of the various factors which combine to make authority on the website. Good content, a user friendly website and SEO will all help to increase your authority.
