How To Increase Website Authority and Establish Your Business Online

The more authoritative your website, the more trust it garners, which results in increased traffic, leads, and conversions.

But, how to increase website authority and reap all the benefits it brings? 

This comprehensive guide will walk you through eight effective tactics on how to increase website authority, from creating resonant content and SEO optimization to cultivating positive reviews and intelligent link building.

Produce Valuable, Relevant, and Original Content 

Boosting your website’s authority starts with quality content. Your audience is searching for solutions and your content should be the go-to place. Creating content that is fresh, valuable, and user-centric not only lifts your website’s visibility but also encourages repeat visits and shares. 

It’s not only about volume either—your emphasis should be on offering your audience something they can’t find elsewhere. Here is how to achieve this:

• Dive deep into your audience’s needs, preferences, and questions. Use tools like Google Trends or Answer the Public for insight. This way, you are creating content that’s directly answering their queries.
• Keep your site fresh by regularly updating your content. Companies that blogged 16+ times per month got almost 3.5X more traffic than companies that publish weekly. 
• Stay original. While it’s ok to get inspired, copying outright not only tarnishes your reputation but can also get you penalized. 
• Create engaging content as it is more likely to be shared. This can increase your website’s reach and visibility and keep your audience coming back for more.

Optimize for SEO

When applied appropriately, SEO strategies can cause a significant shift in your site’s online visibility, improve your rankings, increase traffic, and consequently boost your website authority. 

SEO is a process that demands a lot of attention. Follow these steps to ensure proper optimization: 

• Research and optimize keywords. Incorporate them strategically in your title tags, meta descriptions, and content to improve visibility for those queries.
• Create compelling meta descriptions that accurately reflect your content. This can increase click-through rates. 
• Optimize your images. Ensure they all have ALT tags, are compressed for load time, and are relevant to the page content to enhance user experience and increase site ranking.
• Set up a sitemap to help Google understand your site layout and index it efficiently.
• Optimize your website for mobile devices to cater to the majority of users who access the internet through handheld devices.
• Use canonical tags to avoid duplicated content. These tags signal search engines your preferred version of a webpage.
• Get on-page SEO right. Ensure proper header usage (H1, H2, etc.), keyword placement, content quality, and page format for an aesthetically pleasing user experience and SEO enhancement.
• Use structured data to help search engines better understand and interpret your content which could result in enhanced visibility.
• Pay attention to loading times. Slow sites irritate users and often lead to higher bounce rates.

Ensure Your Website Is Mobile-Friendly 

For modern businesses, having a website that’s not optimized for mobile use is like trying to paddle a boat with a tennis racquet—it’s there, but it’s not of much use. Ignoring this aspect of your online presence may negatively affect your traffic and SEO rankings. 

More than 90% of internet users access the internet using a mobile which underpins the importance of focusing on the mobile experience to build your website authority. Here’s how: 

• Invest in responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes and resolutions. When your site adjusts well to various devices, users are more likely to stick around, reducing bounce rates and signaling to search engines that your content is worth ranking.
• Optimize loading speed. 53% of mobile users abandon sites that take longer than three seconds to load. It’s vital to optimize your images, use lightweight coding, and consider AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) to speed up your mobile pages.
• Opt for simple navigation. This aids the user journey across your site. A clear, easily navigable site encourages visitors to explore further into your website, increasing engagement and indicating to search engines that users find your content valuable.

Provide Superb User Experience 

A key aspect of any successful website is providing a superb user experience. You want visitors not just to find what they’re looking for but to enjoy the process. This includes design elements such as easy navigation, fast loading speed, clear call-to-actions, and visually pleasing layout. 

Creating an immaculate user experience is indeed a catch-all approach to boosting your website’s authority. There’s more to it than a smooth, intuitive interface. It’s about establishing trust and developing user-centric approaches. 

Here are some essentials for ensuring a top-notch user experience: 

• Frequent Testing: Regular usability testing can reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your site. Websites such as UserTesting provide quick, insightful feedback.
• Easy Accessibility: Make it simple for users to access and use your site regardless of their device or abilities. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines can be a useful reference.
• Personalization: Personalize user experiences based on their behavior, preferences, and data. According to Econsultancy, 94% of businesses believe personalization is crucial to their success.
• Interactive Elements: Encourage visitor engagement with chatbots, quizzes, polls, or calculators. A Leadoo study found that chatbots can increase conversion rates by up to 25%.

Encourage and Showcase Positive Customer Reviews 

Positive customer reviews can work wonders in building your website’s credibility and authority. They not only add a personal touch but also act as a powerful testament to your brand’s reputation. 

Make an effort to generate more positive reviews by encouraging your delighted customers to share their experiences. Here’s how can get the ball rolling:

• Ask customers directly. After a successful transaction or service, reach out to your customers and ask for their feedback. 
• Send follow-up emails. A few days after a purchase, send an automated email thanking the customer and asking for their review.
• Create a ‘Review Us’ page on your website. Make it quick and easy for happy customers to leave positive feedback.
• Engage with reviewers. Respond to both positive and negative reviews in a timely and professional manner. This shows your willingness to improve which can inspire more customers to leave reviews.
• Offer rewards. Incentivize your customers to leave a review by offering them a loyalty discount or a chance to enter a prize draw.

Highlight these glowing testimonials prominently on your website to demonstrate your brand quality and trustworthiness. This directly impacts your website’s authority in several ways: 

• 79% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations which can bring in more sales
• Reviews contain relevant keywords that can enhance SEO performance
• Positive reviews can boost conversion rates by up to 270%
• Positive reviews can help manage and control your image effectively

Focus on Link Building 

Increasing your website’s authority isn’t just about having lots of content; it’s also about having quality links pointing to your site. This demonstrates to search engines that your website is a credible source of information. According to Ahrefs, sites with more backlinks tend to have higher organic search traffic. 

Focusing on link building is a long-term strategy that involves multiple steps: 

• Identify key influencers in your industry. These are people or businesses that have a strong online presence and audience. Reach out to them with personalized messages and pitch your content.
• Publish guest posts. Write articles for other websites in your industry. This can help your site gain exposure and backlinks.
• Create compelling infographics. They’re highly shareable and can generate lots of backlinks.
• Share your content across different social platforms to earn more exposure and links.

This may take time, but it’s an investment worth making. However, if you’d rather focus on other operational tasks, you can contact us and have us help you with your link-building efforts. 

Develop an Internal Linking Strategy 

Consider your website as a spider web, each strand serving as a path connecting to different sections of your site. This is the essence of an internal linking strategy. 

Internal links effectively distribute page authority and ranking power among pages. Whether it’s linking to your most popular post in a blog or adding hyperlinks to related products on a product page, a well-thought-out internal linking strategy can bring you closer to achieving the website authority you wish for.

To execute your internal linking strategy effectively, keep these pointers in mind:

• Use anchor text properly. It should be clear, relevant, and descriptive about the linked content. Avoid using generic phrases like ‘click here’.
• Connect related content. When creating new content, try linking to older, related posts. This imparts new life to archived content, growing its authority.
• Link high-traffic to low-traffic: Direct users from high-traffic pages to lower-traffic ones. Use your popular pages to drive traffic to underperforming ones.
• Keep it user-focused. Ultimately, internal links should help the user navigate your site more easily. Ensure they make sense in the context of the content.

Get Your Website Listed in Directories 

A directory listing might appear insignificant, but it forms a crucial part of a holistic SEO strategy intent on improving your website’s authority. Remember to choose your directories wisely — aim for those with high domain authority and relevance to your industry. 

Keep your information consistent across all directories. Ensuring your business name, address, and other details are uniform boosts your chances of ranking higher.

To utilize directory listing to increase your website authority, follow these steps: 

1. Research high-authority directories relevant to your business category. Sites like Yelp and Better Business Bureau Thumbtack are worth considering.
2. Verify the directory’s legitimacy — avoid directories associated with shady practices.
3. Ensure your business isn’t already listed to avoid duplications.
4. Submit your listing. It should include a concise and accurate description, relevant keywords, and high-quality pictures if possible.

How To Increase Website Authority: Key Takeaways 

When it comes to increasing website authority,  you have to adopt all the strategies we covered above. This can help you drastically increase your website’s ranking and visibility, providing a competitive advantage.

It’s not just about having a website — it’s about cultivating an environment where your content shines, your SEO is top-tier, your design is mobile-friendly, and your user experience is nothing short of excellent. Getting positive reviews, diligently building links, designing internal link strategies, and getting listed in directories are vitally important too. 

FAQs

What is website authority?

Website authority refers to the measure of credibility and relevance a specific site holds in its respective niche. It’s determined by the quality of content, the optimization for search engines, the user experience, and the network of inbound and outbound links associated with the site. Typically, sites with high authority are often ranked higher on search engine results pages, indicating their reliability and value to visitors.

How to check website authority?

To check your website’s authority, you can use online tools such as Moz’s Domain Authority Checker, Ahrefs, or SEMRush. These platforms offer comprehensive insights by analyzing several factors like the number and quality of backlinks, site age, and SEO performance. Simply input your website’s URL into these tools, and they will provide a detailed report, including your site’s authority score.