Online marketing is all about reaching the customer and creating conversions. It aims to provide the visibility of the company, its brand, or website to do so. Today, in a search-oriented internet of things rating high in the search results is your best bet at achieving the wanted visibility and getting to the customers. This is where search engines and particularly Google come into play. Google tends to determine the authority of websites directly influencing their rating within search results. It is for this reason that the question of how does Google determine authority becomes so important. However, there is no simple answer to it. This fact is the dominant reason to use professional services from LinkDepartment to help you out.
Why is this important?
As already stated the key to online marketing is to provide conversion and get into such with the customers. To marketers knowing just how to get to the customers and having some straightforward answers is important. But, with its influence, Google is making this issue complex. Google assigns authority that influences the research engine results ranking of a website. The more authority the site has the higher it will rank and the more visible to customers it will be. In turn, this means better sales and profits. So, the rank directly determines the ability to reach customers. Low rank makes it difficult to do so. This is why understanding authority and ranking is important. This knowledge is key to determining the right SEO strategy that will get results.
Why does Google do it?
Well, Google is aimed at providing quality content for the public. It wants to create a great user experience. As such it wants to get the most trustworthy and authoritative sites and provide them to the users. These websites that show up high within the search results are thought to be the best answer to the user’s needs. To do this Google created the authority that it can give to web pages that will, in turn, determine their position in the research results. How it calculates it is somewhat of a mystery. There are many metrics that go into the algorithm to determine authority.
The first metric that Google created was PageRank. This metric took into account the links to pages. The score for a page was determined by the number of links to that webpage. However, Google tried to include the quality factor also. Pages with few links from other important pages could rank higher than web pages with more unimportant pages. That was even more complicated by the use of keywords and particular searches. Even then the high PageRank was not a guarantee of a high search engine position.
Authority today
Today the situation changed considerably. Google keeps its ranking algorithms a secret and there are a lot of changes to its workings over time. Backlinks are still one of the more important factors. Content of the pages is also crucial but there are over 200 metrics that are part of the Google algorithm and influence page authority results. These metrics are created to get to the proxy of authority which should correspond with the true sense of authority with users. Based on that more authoritative content will be more visible.
The metrics are complex but still, the consensus is that the number of links and their quality are still the predominant factors that determine page rank.
It is important to note that Google assigns authority on a page-to-page basis. Basically, authority is given to the page rather than a website or domain. This is to avoid making false assumptions. It basically means that high-quality content with lots of links on one can have high authority. However, that high authority won’t be transferred to the other pages on that domain that do not offer the same quality.
At the same time, we should note that authority of a page can benefit from the authority of a website. Content on any page of a well-known and influential website can have the transfer of authority by default. This will not be the case with an unknown website with little importance. Meaning that the same content on these two websites will not be valued the same by Google.
Working on your authority
When you have an understanding of how does Google determine authority it is easier to work on improving it. Your SEO effort will be aimed at doing just that. Knowing some of the metrics it uses to assess an authority to improve it you can:
- Build authoritative links
- Provide great experience
- Link credible webpages
- Use social media
Build authoritative links
Work on building backlinks that have authority. Try to make good contact with authoritative websites and try to present them with quality and trustworthy content. It takes time but you will be able to earn backlinks to your content boosting your authority. To that try to.
Provide quality content – it must be relevant, on point, unique with new insight and value to the readers.
Outreach manually – find websites that can benefit from your content. Make contact and present your work. If your content is compelling there will make backlinks to your website.
Both of these factors will build the authority of your website. It won’t happen overnight but with hard work and time, it will get results.
Provide great experience
Google also wants to assess the user experience on websites. So, work on creating menus and site structures that are organic and easy to navigate. Make sure you have fast load speeds and simple navigation that makes using the site simple, easy, and convenient.
Link credible webpages
Be clear that you can’t explain every topic in detail on your webpage. So, use external links to other websites that can provide additional information and be clear to the users. Make sure to link to credible sources that have authority. High authority sites are trustworthy whole low authority sites may provide questionable information.
Use social media
Use social media to build relationships in the industry. These relationships can then be utilized to build links. At the same time build brand awareness and credibility over social networks making yourself more visible.
Understanding Google’s ways of doing business are important. It influences the online marketing results and the visibility of the website, company, or brand. As such it is a force that can influence a business considerably. No wonder why understanding how does Google determine authority becomes important. Understanding this can lead your SEO effort to achieve better results and profits.