5 SEO Hacks That Will Boost Website Authority

Bloggers, companies, eCommerce stores, and everyone else online are obsessed with one thing – organic traffic.

We all know how it goes – the higher the traffic, the higher the chances of conversions. You reach new clients, win them over, and grow your business. In the end, it is all about strengthening your bottom line.

However, to obtain organic traffic, you need a strong digital strategy – and search engine optimization is, oh, so hard. As a result, what business people and marketers crave is SEO hacks that allow them to boost their website authority and become more relevant.

In fact, nowadays authority is more important than ever. It’s one of the three factors that Google uses to determine the quality of a page – expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (a.k.a. EAT). This makes SEO authority crucial for building an online presence.

And yet, getting to the top isn’t an easy job. Also, it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years of consistency and patience to reach that top position in the SERPs. Nevertheless, it’s still doable if you’re motivated and incentivized enough.

In this article, we provide 5 SEO hacks that will help you boost your website authority, and skyrocket your links to the top of the search results.

Before we get into the details, let’s sort out the basics of website and domain authority.

What Is Domain Authority (DA)?

Domain Authority is a measurement that predicts how well an online property might rank in search engines. It can be used to estimate the authority of a website in a similar way that Google would. .

The system was developed by Moz, the Amazon of SEO and marketing analytics. It considers over 40 different factors to give your website a rank on a scale of 0-100, with 100 being the best. The higher your domain authority, the higher you rank in search results.

An important thing to remember is that Domain Authority is not the same as page rank. It is in fact a fictive metric. And yet, it can help you gauge an important aspect of your SEO success.

Domain Authority gives a cumulative result of the page authority of all your URLs. There is a possibility that one of your web pages is a particular favorite with your audience. It’ll have a higher page authority, which basically shows its popularity.

How Is Domain Authority Computed?

Although this ranking scale was developed by Moz, they are quiet about the factors that influence Domain Authority. People speculate, of course, but nobody is quite sure what influences the results.

Moz mentions there are over 40 different dimensions that are considered. They also talk about the machine learning algorithms that test the website in question against live websites already at the top of the search results.

The points on the scale move logarithmically, so it is easier to push up the points when they’re close to zero than when they are above 70. It gets more difficult the higher you get.

Moz mentions four factors that influence the DA:

• Linking root domains
• The total number of links
• MozRank
• MozTrust.

Two of these are Moz’s own brainchild (not surprisingly). So improving your Domain Authority takes more than just a strategy and effort; it takes dedication and the willingness to learn from (sometimes costly) mistakes.

However, the end goal here is not to make Moz happy and to boost your DA for the sake of it. The point is to use this metric as an indicator showing you how well you are doing.

By managing to increase it, you will be able to improve your actual website and SEO authority, your standing with Google, and your rankings.

5 SEO Hacks and Tips to Improve Your Website Authority

Although there’s no one way to go about improving your website authority – one shoe doesn’t fit all – there are certain guidelines that can help. Every website is different and without an individualized audit, it’s difficult to say what will work and not.

Here 5 SEO hacks that works for most websites:

1. Remember that Content Is King

We know, we know – everyone is tired of hearing this. But it is what it is – a solid fact. Content is King.

…and the kingdom is the internet. If you want to rule it, build a content strategy that keeps your audiences contained within your fort!

It is the unsaid principle of staying online – content.

This isn’t news, of course. However, the SEO hack we have in mind is that this doesn’t just include the written word – you can (and should) explore all kinds of content!

Given the reducing attention spans of customers (even a goldfish is better), dynamic and interactive content like audio, such as podcasts, and visuals, such as infographics, have gained more popularity. The quicker and clearer you are at delivering your message, the more likely it will stay with your audience.

For eCommerce stores, clear and compelling images are the key. From a human perspective, visuals are what keeps the target audience hooked on a website. The more frequently they revisit a site to feast their eyes on those absolute must-haves, the better this communicates to the search engines that will automatically bump up your stats.

You can get an idea by evaluating the looks of Sophie & Trey for fashion, WP Standard for accessories and detail, and Minaal for travel gear, and more.

On this note, people (and search engines) don’t generally like sedentary websites. There’s a difference between finding your voice and droning on. There’s nothing wrong with breaking the monotony and spicing things up.

Target trending topics and create awesome content that has the potential to go viral. This virality plays a role in bumping up your Domain Authority and website authority by a few points.

2. Perform a Links Audit

Here’s the second SEO hack is quite an important one – you need to conduct a links audit to see who is linking back to your content. It is, at max, a day’s chore, but this simple step can have a profound impact on your website authority.

Everyone in SEO knows that backlinks are the most important factor that Google uses to determine the authority and credibility of a website – they are like recommendations by other websites that vouch for you.

Moz Analytics is the perfect place to start.

Since Google revised its policy, the quality of links has become integral to website authority. Not just any Tom, Dick, and Harry will do – you need to be looking for backlinks that come from high authority and relevant websites.

Guest posts and signature links don’t work the same way as they used to. The numbers game has long lost its meaning and purpose. Anything that doesn’t meet the criteria set by Google needs to be disavowed immediately.

You can still work on generating backlinks from websites like Quora and your industry-specific forums. Or you can suggest your own website URL against broken links on popular high authority websites.

When you feature somebody else’s link in your post, send it out to them for social sharing and you’ll see a natural increase in traffic.

Generating backlinks is a game of ‘give and take’ that everybody plays on their own terms. You can’t force anybody to link to your content. The best way to go about it is to create valuable high-quality content that folks in your industry will be compelled to share.

3. Get Your Hands Dirty with the Nitty Gritty of SEO

O, this is hardly an SEO hack, but – yes, you need to get your hands dirty and do the work, sorry.

You must have your basics sorted out. There are a few things about content SEO you need to know. Getting these right will put you somewhere on the online landscape even if you’re not at the top of the skyscraper!

These include:

• Selecting Keywords: There are quite a few tools for keyword research. What are the key phrases you want to be featured in your content? This depends a lot on consumer behavior, your business needs, and the goals of your content strategy.
• Setting Keyword Density: Keyword stuffing is frowned upon. Don’t go overboard with adding keywords in your content. It should always be about quality and value before SEO, and relevance before density.
• Using Keywords in Headlines: This just helps in ranking your page better and supporting your domain authority along the way.
• Using H1, H2, and H3 Heading Tags: Google, no matter how closely it resembles one, isn’t human. The bots will read and evaluate your website based on these tags. Make it easier for the bots so they can, in turn, make it easier for your audience to find you.
• Meta Title, Tags, and Descriptions: It works well for search engines when they’re displaying a glimpse of your website to your potential prospects. Also, meta tags make it easier for search engines to understand, crawl, and index your content.
• Image Optimization via Alt Text: Google can’t read images. Mostly, it will grade and evaluate visual content based on tags and ALT text available, so make sure to cover the image SEO basics.
• Internal Linking: It is a good practice to internally link your content where sensible to augment the overall value of your piece. Particularly if your content revolves around a specific niche, you need not reiterate content from previous posts all the time. Linking it will not only help readers/viewers find relevant information but also rank well in search engines.

4. Publish Frequently

Experts suggest selecting a publishing frequency for your content to keep your fans hooked. They will know when to expect something new and they’ll visit your website accordingly. But there’s more to this than just keeping your audience engaged.

Most search engines favor websites that are updated frequently. And by updates, it means adding new content, refreshing old content, repurposing and curating content from other places, and basically adding value to your online kingdom with every passing day.

So set a publishing frequency that is workable and keeps search engines as well as target readers engaged.

5. Opt for Responsive Design

Nowadays, responsive design is a necessity.

While there’s still a large segment of the population that accesses websites on desktop computers (yes, they still exist!) and laptops, most people browse the internet on mobile devices.

Whether it is a tablet or smartphone, if it is connected to the internet, people will use it to view websites. And if they’re landing on your website to an extremely distorted display, they’ll probably never come back. In fact, this is rated as one of the leading factors that lead to horrible web experiences.

Don’t lose potential long-term customers; think responsive right from the beginning! Even search engines rank mobile-friendly websites higher than non-responsive ones. In fact, mobile-first indexing is now the norm.

You don’t need two separate identities on both forums; you simply need to make these fluid enough to fit whatever screen your prospects use. Follow good coding practices so your website gives a good return on investment.

Recap

Building up your website authority is a tedious task that may take years. Even then, it’s not complete. The protocols for ranking your website keep evolving to counter spam and low-quality content.

Focusing on quality can often get you places without fearing a downfall. For the rest, try using these SEO hacks to boost both the online performance of your website and its authority SEO results.

They won’t provide shortcuts, you still need to do the work. But the results will be way better. Remember: slow and steady wins the race!

Author Bio: Jenny Harrison is a passionate business and lifestyle blogger. She loves to engage with readers who are seeking business, home, lifestyle-related information on the internet. Follow her on twitter @MJennyHarrison for more updates.