Website authority, popularly known as domain authority, is an SEO concept that describes the website’s relevance in a specific subject area. It predicts the likelihood of the website to rank in search engine result pages (SERPS).
Website authority is important because it determines how much organic traffic you may receive from major search engines like Google. Some websites are authoritative without even seeming to try.
For instance, a website like Forbes has high website authority because it has naturally integrated both primary and secondary keywords throughout the site. Besides keywords, the quality and relevance of your backlinks matter a lot when it comes to website authority. In this article, we will give you tips on how to use your blog to create website authority. After all, Tower Local is also doing that exact thing while you try and create website authority on your very own site.
Update your blog with long-form content
One of the best and most recommended ways to create website authority using your blog is by posting long-form content. Long-form content refers to content that offers quality information on a given topic. The minimum length for long-form content should be anywhere between 1000 and 2000 words.
A 2016 study found that longer content tends to rank higher in Google search results than shallow content. The primary goal of Google is to provide results that are beneficial to users. The reason why long-form content usually outperforms shallow content in ranking is that it provides more useful information to users.
When you post long-form content, you will position yourself as an authority on the topic or subject and that will make your website the center of focus of prospects and customers. When people have questions on that particular topic, they will turn to your site.
Long content provides more in-depth information about a particular topic. As a result, people tend to engage more deeply with such content. Visitors will spend quality time on your website and are also likely to view other related pages.
This could have a positive impact on your ranking. When Google realizes that users are spending more time on your website, it will mark it as important and increase its ranking. Additionally, long-form content tends to gain more inbound links, which also plays a crucial role in determining your ranking on Google.
Use “Top List” Posts
Most readers like top-list posts because they are easier to read. They are also easy to popularize. When creating content for your audience, you need to make it more attractive and appealing. “Top List” posts work in large parts because of the attention-grabbing power of the headlines. It also conveys the message easier and better.
Most readers today are lazy to read a lot of content. Before they commit to reading the entire article on your blog, they will first skim the content to see if it covers the topics that are important to them.
When you use a top list, you will make it easy for them to scan the content and quickly make a decision on whether to read the article or not. The top list also makes the content look neat, well organized, thus making your blog stand out from others.
However, to get the best result from top-list posts, you need to know how to write them effectively. For instance, you need to ensure that the content has a proper and logical style. The list should be divided into short paragraphs and should contain a lot of headings and subheadings. You should also use images in a proper way.
Top list blogs are ideal for building your website authority and demonstrating that you are an expert in your area of expertise.
Have a Highly Responsive Site
A highly responsive site performs well on a variety of devices and screen sizes. A highly responsive site delivers the best user experience you need to make it easy for people to access your website on all platforms. This way you will attract more audience.
If users cannot navigate your website easily, it is highly unlikely that they will hang around. Google usually takes into consideration the time that users spend on a page for any given query to determent the site’s value. A highly responsive website will make it easier for your visitors to navigate and read the content.
Remember that Google is more concerned about satisfying users. So if your website is highly responsive and delivers a positive user experience, it will reward it by boosting its ranking in search engine result pages.
Your website responsiveness will also determine your website load speed and bounce rate (how quickly your visitors leave your website). If your site is highly responsive, it will have a high load speed and a low bounce rate, which will impact positively on your ranking and authority.
Remove Toxic Backlinks
Sometimes it is easy to get obsessed with building backlinks to the point where you get toxic backlinks. Toxic backlinks can weaken your website’s SEO and authority which means fewer organic visitors.
Toxic backlinks can happen organically or can be a result of black hat backlinking. Regardless of how you got the toxic backlinks, you need to remove them immediately to improve your website authority.
Conduct a thorough backlinks audit to identify toxic backlinks. Signs of a toxic backlink include those coming from websites that are not indexed by Google, those coming from sites that are not topically relevant, and those coming from websites that have been specifically set up to link.
If you have links that fall under the categories mentioned above, you should remove them immediately because they are denting your website authority and ranking.
Optimize Internal Links
Your internal linking should be optimized to provide value to your readers. For instance, your anchor links should use anchor text as opposed to linked images. You should also use links that are natural for the reader, and you should link deep.
Optimizing internal links also involves ensuring that using relevant links. Don’t just link for the sake of linking. Also, don’t use tons of links in your internal content. Instead, only use a reasonable number of relevant links.
Well, optimized internal links will improve user experience, which, in turn, will improve time on site, page views, and ranking. A well-optimized internal linking also makes crawling and indexing easy.
Optimize On-Page Content
Another great way to boost your website authority is by optimizing your on-page content, commonly referred to as on-page SEO.
On-page content optimization ensures that your content is written in a way that is useful to your target audience. It includes ensuring that all associated keywords, Meta tags, title tags, and relevant links are included.
On-page content optimization will help to improve the overall readily of your website to your target users. It will also help to enhance your visibility in search results by targeting relevant keywords.
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