The authority is one of the most important criteria search engines will judge your website by. For example, if you sell cosmetics and beauty products, they will assess through a variety of goals and indicators the authority you are in the cosmetic and beauty industry.
Only search engines themselves are listed on the recipes for how they focus different aspects of your website. We know that links is among the specific objectives of the authority, and here it is number and quality on the links pointing in to your website that are of greatest importance. A major question is whether the links come from other ‘authorities’ websites — either within the same industry, or elsewhere on the web.
So called ‘engagements metrics’ (link to our article) are other key authority markers. This includes, inter alia, the boom rate and time-on-site.
Building a website to become an authority in its niche is both demanding and long-term work, and is the result of a full-scale effort rather than technical perfectionism. Google itself has produced a list of questions webmasters can ask when building good web pages, and among the words in this list names Authority, Trust and expertise repeatedly.
Some important particularly important and interesting points:
- Is this text/article written by an expert or enthusiastic with knowledge of the subject, or does it seem more superficially described?
- Do you have enough confidence in this website to provide your credit card info?
- Is this website considered an authority in the subject?
- Does the website provide unique content or information, unique research and proprietary analyses?
- Could you expect to see this article in a printed magazine or book?
- Are there spelling and typing errors in the article/page?
- Would a complaint be used when they see a page from this website?