Establishing your business as an authority is a great way to get yourself some free inbound links. When your users come to trust you, they won’t just keep coming back. They will bring friends with them. A lot can be done to boost your authority off-page, like answering questions in forums and leaving comments on blogs. What a lot of businesses don’t realise is how much can be done on your pages as well.

Much of your search engine optimisation energies will be focussed on attracting the search engines to your site. This is understandable. It’s no excuse to ignore the things that will impress your site users. Good SEO involves high quality content and other aspects that will build your reputation in a roundabout way. You can talk to us at SEO Consult about this. The content of your pages can be used to back up the assertions of authority you make around the net.

• A blog. This is a very popular way to establish authority, but it continues to work. An intelligent, informative blog can gradually build your authority as people come to rely on you for answers. It also has an SEO purpose, providing relevant fresh content to your pages.
• Awards. Being recognised by your industry via an award is a sign of that industry’s support.
• Affiliations. If you belong to any prominent industry associations, it can be worthwhile displaying their logos. Most associations happily provide members with logos, but ensure that you do have permission first.
• Customer testimonials. These are quite valuable in some industries, and can engage your site users on a deeper level. A good indication that you should feature some customer testimonials is if your competitors display their own.
• Reviews and publications. Reviews can come in handy in many ways for your SEO, and making note of them on your site puts them to even better use. If your company has managed to land an article in a major publication, feature it also.
• Qualifications. It should go without saying that if your qualifications aren’t impressive, you shouldn’t advertise them. Similarly, if your industry is a technical one but your customers aren’t, displaying your qualifications on your home page won’t impress.
• Statistics. If you achieve great results for your clients, don’t be afraid to boast about them. Comparing them to industry-wide statistics can be a good way to provide something for users to judge your stats against.
• Client lists. High-profile clients make a certain statement about your abilities. Note that some clients are less open to having their patronage displayed than others. Use your own judgement when deciding whom to advertise.
• Security assurances. Particularly if your business involves any financial transactions, providing proof of your site security not only sets users minds at rest, it can build your authority. It plays on the conception that only reputable businesses bother to go to such lengths.

Any work you do in establishing authority comes back tenfold. Authority denotes a certain level of reliability, which wins over new site users and attracts them from all over the net.

Get Involved