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Authority sites
(or rather authority site status) is what you are interested
in if you are in the hunt for top position on the search
engines. In search engine optimization terms, authority
sites make your job 10 times easier than a website that
has not already achieved this status.
Some websites
are already authority sites, but since they have not undergone
search engine optimization they are not recognized by the
search engines as such. Other websites either lack content
our lack the links to be considered authority sites.
On most search
engines, for the highly competitive, high traffic keywords,
you will notice that generally the top 10 results are loaded
with authority sites. There are some exceptions of course,
but in general the search engines smile favorably upon the
websites they define as authority sites and reward these
sites with top rankings.
What makes
an authority site?
Authority sites
generally have more content and more pages than other sites.
The search engines feed on content-rich websites and those
with many pages and much content per page will do better
when going head-to-head with a smaller site.
In addition,
links from other authority sites to your site will help
establish your site as an authority site as well. Search
engines generally give more weight to the incoming links
from authority sites as long as their main keyword is the
same as your own.
How do you
establish your site as an authority site?
First, add more
pages to your site. Second, add more content to those pages.
Third, find some authority link partners willing to link
to your site. Sounds simple, doesn't it?
Before adding
more pages to the website, most likely some research will
have to be conducted. Get some ideas by checking out what
the competition is doing and how they are doing it. You
may come up with some good ideas as to why they are beating
you in the search engine rankings and you may take corrective
action.
Once you know
what pages to add, you will either need to write some content,
delegate this task to someone else, or hire a copywriter
to do this for you. If you already know how to write content-rich,
keyword-rich text, then you can take this task on with very
little expense. If this is not your strength, then you may
delegate this task or hire someone else to do it. There
are even places online for article exchanges where you can
pick up content by simply linking back to the author's site.
Once you have
more pages with more content, you will need to solicit other
authority sites to becoming link partners with you. This
can be accomplished through email. Some will and some will
not answer your requests and of those who answer some will
and some will not link to you. The more content and better
design of your website, however, the more likely others
will want to link to you.
Once your site
has more pages, more content and more high-ranking link
partners, you will want to make sure your pages are optimized
for the search engines properly.
After all of
these steps have been taken, then it is time to submit your
website to the major search engines and directories once
again so that they may re-index the website and move your
site higher up in the rankings.
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