When discussing SEO, and link building in particular, a lot of fuss is made over do called authority sites. A link from an authority site can prove highly beneficial in generating a good link profile that will help improve search engine rankings. Gaining links from authority sites isn’t always an easy task and determining what is and what is not an authority site requires a judgement call determined by the evidence in front of you.

What Makes A Site Authoritative

Generally speaking, an authority site is one that performs well in the search rankings for more competitive keywords as well as minor, less competitive keywords. Essentially they have performed their own SEO techniques exceptionally well and have consistently provided search engines with the factors that help a site to rank well. Unfortunately, there is no button or indicator that identifies whether or not a site is considered to be authoritative so looking specifically for an SEO authority site is not the best way to approach the problem.

SEO Link Building

When link building for SEO we should always be looking for high quality links from high quality sites. Whether or not they are considered authoritative will become obvious when we gain a link because it will give a good boost to search rankings, especially if you’re currently a way down the search engine rankings. Rather than looking for authority sites, then, it’s more sensible and more successful to look for the higher quality sites within the same industry or based on the same topic as your own site.

How To Become An Authority Site

Becoming an authority site should be the goal of just about any website but it will take a combination of hard work and time. It means undertaking a major SEO campaign and keeping that campaign going for a number of years but if successful, it can mean a huge amount of targeted traffic. Authority sites tend to perform very well for almost any keyword that they target and even brand new pages can fare well in search engine rankings once authority status has been granted.

Set Your SEO Goals

Again, bidding to become an authority site is unlikely to be your primary goal. The goal of SEO is to provide a good level of high quality, targeted traffic to your pages. Becoming an authority site can be viewed as the pinnacle of your SEO campaign but once you believe you have achieved that status you still need to continue with your SEO campaign, adding high quality content and building more high quality links to bolster your search engine link profile.

Authority Sites

Authority sites are usually extremely mature sites (in terms of age, not content). By showing this age, they indicate to search engines that they are bidding to become a serious, long term player in their industry rather than a website set up for short term gain. Quality should be extensive and of a very high quality and links should be as natural as possible and numerous in quantity. These are only some of the factors that determine the authoritativeness of a website but they are important to SEO as well so are desirable for any SEO campaign.

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