I was recently asked this question.
Though often talked about, I thought it still might be a good idea to write about authoritative sites and what they mean in terms of online marketing/ SEO.
—»Simply put, an authoritative site (or an authority site) is a site that has an authority over a subject or upon various topics.
- Who decides the authority factor?
»I would say, an authoritative site’s performance, in terms of unique content, user experience, among other things, is the deciding factor.An authoritative site does not happen in one day. It takes a lot of effort and time to get to that stage.
Say, you have a question or a query or you wish to know about something, what do you do?
Besides asking people or checking out books for information, usually we Google our query or keyword/ keyphrase, or use any other search engine, and click on the most likely site from among the list of sites that show up on the SERPs.
Perhaps, the web page you click on the first time does not answer your query, what do you do?
You go to the next best page and so on…till you get your answer. Not only does the answer have to satisfy you, it would definitely help, if you can get some more relevant information from that site.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could stumble upon a website that offers just that! A website that is a mine of information and has extensive information on almost every relevant topic that you can think of!
The site would also reference other relevant sites, in case you wish to find out more about subjects related to it. That is what I call a complete site. Not only does it quench the visitor’s thirst for information but it also referes the visitor to other relevant sites. I would not want to lose such a site and would most definitely bookmark this site for future reference. The user experience combined with the extensive precious correct information is what makes a site authoritative.
Some of the most popular authoritative sites are -
Wikipedia, About, and many edu domain sites. What is common between them? They have original unique content and about thousands and thousands of pages of unique content. They are referred by thousand of sites. They are any searchers delight and they fulfill almost every requirement. They are user friendly, they have interactive sections such as forums, blogs etc. Almost all of these websites have been in existence for years and they do not have any spamming background.
If terms of SEO or Internet marketing, it is really beneficial to get a link from these sites. A one way backlink from authority sites will definitely help your site get noticed by users and search engines, and increase traffic to your site. But these sites are extremely choosy. They maintain high standards and do not compromise on any factors.
If your website boasts of unique content that gets updated very often and has good traffic, you might get links from various sources and with time from authoritative site. Just keep up the hard work. Who knows, some day your site might warrant the same amount of respect as the ‘authoritative sites’ and become an authority too!
Follow SEO best practices on twitter
This is a great article about marketing. I’m a college student just trying to learn more about this space and I really enjoyed reading it. Keep up the great work!
I found your blog via search engine a few moments ago, and luckily, this is it I was looking for the last weeks, thanks
A very interesting read and a great post alltogether. Would you mind if I posted the same article on my blog (with a reference to your website)?
Hi,
Sure, you can post this article on your website. As long as you mention that you found this article at seo-bestpractices.com and provide a link back to my website.
Pingback: Richelle
Pingback: Matilde
Pingback: Chantelle
Pingback: Jenzing
Pingback: Xehmer
Pingback: TadWinett
Pingback: Frederic
Pingback: kander
I like to impede out of the closet your blog a three times a week looking for recent readings. I was wondering if you have any other topics you jot about?
fantastic post, very informative. I’m wondering why the other experts of this sector don’t realize this. You must continue your writing. I’m sure, you have a huge readers’ base already!best Regards Lisa
Its like you read my mind! You seem to know so much about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you can do with a few pics to drive the message home a bit, but other than that, this is excellent blog. A fantastic read. I’ll definitely be back.
Hello Web Admin, I noticed that your On-Page SEO is not that great, for one you do not use all three H tags in your post, also I notice that you are not using bold or italics properly in your SEO optimization. On-Page SEO means more now than ever since the new Google update: Panda. No longer are backlinks and simply pinging or sending out a RSS feed the key to getting Google PageRank or Alexa Rankings, You now NEED On-Page SEO. So what is good On-Page SEO?First your keyword must appear in the title.Then it must appear in the URL.You have to optimize your keyword and make sure that it has a nice keyword density of 3-5% in your article with relevant LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing). Then you should spread all H1,H2,H3 tags in your article.Your Keyword should appear in your first paragraph and in the last sentence of the page. You should have relevant usage of Bold and italics of your keyword.There should be one internal link to a page on your blog and you should have one image with an alt tag that has your keyword….wait there’s even more Now what if i told you there was a simple WordPress plugin that does all the On-Page SEO, and automatically for you? That’s right AUTOMATICALLY, just watch this 4minute video for more information at http://wordpress-seoplugin.info