Improving your reputation in search engines might sound vague, but it’s a real thing! Search engines actively look for signals of expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
There are multiple ways that your authority gets quantified by search engines. Many search engines monitor links from other authoritative websites, which has long been one of the most important factors in search engine rankings. This does not mean that you should just start buying links, though. Google might even actively repress your website if you do this because of their link spam policy. It’s best to look for organic linkbuilding opportunities by making great content and reaching out to relevant websites.
Google has introduced the E-E-A-T principle, which is also very relevant when looking at the authority pillar. According to Google, a page should show Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust. They collect signals from around the internet like Wikipedia and social media platforms to decide the authoritativeness of a content creator or a website. For trust, they look for signals to quantify the accuracy, honesty, safety and reliability of a page. Experience and expertise are mostly quantified within the content itself, but they still have some relevancy to authority.
Key authority takeaways
- Get links from other websites (also known as backlinks) by making great, shareable content and reaching out to relevant websites.
- Do not buy backlinks, as this can potentially result in ranking penalties.
- Be trustworthy by writing accurate and honest content and offering secure connectivity to your website.
- Represent yourself or your entity on different platforms (i.e. social media, Wikipedia, a business listing) to improve the authoritativeness of your website.