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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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