Without recognition from search engines, getting your brand into a sustainable position can be difficult. Sure, you can throw money at PPC campaigns across email, social media and search, but who has the money to continuously be doing that? Ultimately, organic traffic is essential and search engines remain the best place through which to generate it on balance. Search engines weigh a considerable number of variables when determining who to rank and how highly to rank each result, but one increasingly important variable is content authority. Today, we’ll talk about what you can do to boost the authoritativeness of your content and help ensure you rank better in the future.

Use Citations

Search engines love to see websites that have synergy, facts and other concrete elements that relate to data. Whenever you’re creating new content, how many citations do you tend to include? If the answer is “0”, then it’s time that you start pinging links to other websites. Google has a clear understanding of factual statements. This doesn’t only include cold-hard numbers and statistics, but more abstract factual assertions. When you strive to include all of these elements in your content – at the same time that you are linking to other professionals and authoritative sources on the matter – the trustworthiness of your website increases. Since trustworthiness is a key element of authority for search engines, you’ll begin to notice a difference in how and where you rank.

Incorporate Multimedia

Authority is derived from many metrics, but one crucial element of authority pertains to the multimedia used in your content. As a matter of principle, it is generally a good idea to include multimedia in your content due to users preferring to read and interact with it over standard, blander forms of content. This can be a great way to keep people’s attention spans focused when writing particular long and detailed pieces. As it turns out, search engines also love to see this and reward websites who use multimedia. It is believed that search engines are viewing content that includes multimedia as being better equipped to help explain complex subjects and topics in detail.

Open Yourself to Engagement

Last but definitely not least, authority is derived from a search engine’s perception of how much the writer and website can be trusted. Websites that are sure to include contact information and specific details about the brand are more likely to rank highly in search than those who don’t. You can help boost the authority of your website’s content by pinging links to your email and social media accounts, by including a brand’s telephone number and even by responding to users in the comments section. You’ll gain benefits in two areas by doing so: not only will search engines perceive you as being more open and legitimate, but readers will as well. This will help you establish better rapport with your audience and can be one part of a multi-faceted effort to build more closely-knit communities that grow organically,

By combining expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, you can quickly ascend the ranks in search and reach more people who will find your content engaging. What other tactics have you used or considered in order to boost your content’s appeal and authority? Tell us below about them.