Above all else, those who pursue strategies relating to search engine optimization do so to ensure greater visibility in search results. Maximizing the strategies that deliver improved visibility is therefore a top priority for bloggers, brands and businesses alike. There are numerous factors that can affect how well a website is ranked in results and to what extent it is visible across a variety of SERPs.

Website authority is one crucial element to better SEO outcomes, but how can it can be improved? Let’s take a quick look at the basics behind the concept of website authority and how they impact the overall metric.

Build More Links

Fundamentally, website authority is built upon the broader premise of how trustworthy, informative and authoritative your website is perceived to be by search engines. As such, it should not be surprising that the amount of mentions, links and other similar metrics detected by these search engines will impact website authority.

Pinging search engines with a variety of links is critical, but what kinds of links are needed to improve website authority?

First and foremost are backlinks, or earned links. These links point to your pages from other websites. It’s important to remember that not all links are viewed equally: some backlinks provide little to no value, while others (from well-ranked or trusted websites) can lend considerable credibility to your website in the eyes of search engines.

Secondly, outbound links are another consideration. Each page and piece of content should have links pointing to other websites that are authoritative and relevant to your topics. Again, be selective about which websites you are linking to, as low-quality websites can impact your performance over time.

Lastly, internal links are another major consideration. Ensuring that your pages and posts are well-connected is crucial in making sure search engines can find all of your content. The more content you have, the more potential links you earn. The more synergy that exists between pages, the more likely it is that people and search engines will successfully locate your content, link to it and/or otherwise assess it when determining website authority.

Create Desirable Content

In the spirit of the above, improving website authority as it pertains to building links can only be as successful as the content of your website is excellent. Ultimately, if you’re pinging search engines with content that people are not finding useful or relevant, then the chances of that content being a net asset to building website authority is next to zero.

To ensure you’re able to earn links and bolster this metric, it is imperative that you create desirable content. Through keyword research, questionnaires, analyzing patterns in your website’s analytics and a bit of common sense, brands, blogs and businesses can easily determine what topics their audiences find appealing. From there, it becomes necessary to create content around those topics that lives up to audiences’ expectations.

Website authority is vital to long-term SEO success. While not 100% guaranteed, link building is a core component of generating better website authority and can be accomplished through direct pitches as well as an innate focus on the quality of content produced.