Website Authority: Dos and Don’ts
Increasing website authority as a B2B organization means turning your focus to off-page SEO—strategies that signal to search engines that your website is authoritative, trustworthy, and supported with quality off-site backlinks and citations.
When search engine algorithms are sorting and ranking content to display in search results, website authority is integral. Sites like Google, DuckDuckGo, and Bing aim to prioritize websites and content that have been vouched for by other authoritative websites online.
With large budgets and deals on the line in the B2B industry, digital reputation building with professionalism, expertise, and accuracy is critical to earning client trust. Intensive research is a key part of the client decision-making process, and learning how to increase your website authority helps establish trust and industry expertise during the important research and competitor analysis phase.
From establishing trustworthiness with engaging thought leadership content to using link-building services as part of a comprehensive backlinking strategy, let’s explore concrete ways to increase the authority of your website.
What is a Website’s Authority Score?
Website authority is a measure of how reputable your website is, its ranking potential, and how well it actually performs in search engine results pages (SERPs). Your site’s authority is determined by a combination of factors, like backlinks, useful content, and site trustworthiness. It’s easy to assume that website authority is the same thing as Domain Authority (DA), but it’s not.
What is domain authority, exactly? Domain Authority (DA) is a trademarked term coined by Moz. It’s a numeric value that takes backlinks into account to measure a website’s ability to rank in search results. The backlink-based domain authority score was once the metric every website was chasing, but Google algorithm updates in 2012 flipped the script and made backlinks a less important ranking factor.
Sites that relied on backlinks alone to boost SERP positions saw devastating declines in traffic. Today, we know that scores like DA are less relevant than the new authority-ranking factors: high-quality content and user engagement.
With this in mind, how much does an authority score matter? Not much. Authority score, domain authority score, and other terms coined by major players in the search engine marketing software industry are what we call made-up metrics. They can be helpful as a general guide, but they’re platform-centric and do not accurately reflect the factors that increase your ability to boost your ranking position on Google and other search engines.
Backlinks: The Key To Building Authority
While we know that backlinks are no longer the be-all, end-all of site authority, it’s still true that a good backlinking strategy is the backbone of off-page SEO to boost your site’s ranking potential. Backlinks are like a digital letter of recommendation that high-traffic, reputable sites write to search engines about your site.
In short, backlinks from quality sources tell search engines that your content and information are verified, accurate, and trustworthy.
Backlinks Are Not Created Equally
Not all links have equal value. Bigger, more reputable sites—like government bodies, large organizations, universities, and news publications—offer more “link juice.” They send stronger signals to search engines when they link to your website than smaller players online.
But paying for backlinks from websites that violate search engine guidelines (like using black-hat SEO techniques like keyword stuffing) will only penalize your website in search results. Getting poor-quality backlinks is like drinking dirty water when you’re thirsty. It might seem like it’ll help at the moment, but you’ll only end up in a worse position than you started in.
The backlinks you want will be:
- Relevant to your industry, audience, and what you offer
- Obtained organically or on a link-by-link basis—never bought in bulk
- From reputable websites with high-traffic
Building Quality Backlinks
Quality backlinking opportunities are everywhere, but you’ll need to do a little research, outreach, and content creation to get the links that have the most pronounced effect on your ranking potential. Try doing outreach to relevant publications and websites, writing guest blog posts for websites that share your target audience, and creating original content for your own site that can be referenced, cited, and linked to from other credible sources online.
So how can you tell a good link from a bad link? At CSP, we recommend starting with a backlink audit to separate the wheat from the chaff. Our link-building services include a complete backlink profile and competitor analysis, toxic link identification, guest post opportunities to nab valuable backlinks, and identification of linking opportunities from high-profile websites.
Actionable Steps to Increasing Your Website’s Authority
We’ve looked at what site authority is, how content and backlinks play into building your site’s authority, and how to differentiate a good link from a bad link. Bringing it all together, what actionable steps can you take to boost your website’s authority?
- Write better content: Learn how to write useful content and start with keyword research to reach your target audience. Find competing content that already ranks for the keywords you’re after, then create a better article, guide, or blog post with great writing, credible sources, and original tips or recommendations developed from your industry expertise.
- Get rid of bad links: Poor-quality backlinks or those purchased in bulk may be holding you back or penalizing you in search results. It’s essential to run a comprehensive backlink audit to root out the toxic links that lead to search engine penalties and hurt your visibility.
- Prioritize internal linking: Internal links that direct users to other pages on your website have a twofold effect on your website’s authority. First, they help search engines index and understand the content on your website in context. Second, they direct visitors to related content on your site, boosting time spent on page and improving the user experience.
- Get links from directories: Listing your company and website with online business directories is a simple way to increase authority and generate new leads. Directories give you a credible backlink that benefits SEO, and many are free (Yelp, Foursquare, etc.) to list your business on.
Discover the Benefits of an Authoritative Site
The best way to improve authority is to do the groundwork diligently—provide value with great content, do your research to land high-value backlink opportunities and don’t waste time chasing keywords or search engine trends. Applying the content and backlinking strategies outlined here will get you off to a great start and boost your site’s authority, but if you need expert help, schedule a call with CSP today. We can help you discover the power of an authoritative site.
