Sep 3, 2008
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Many websites do very well in the search engines without doing hardly any link building at all. So how does this happen. If you see a website that was in the 20’s or so in position and then noticeably jumps to the top 10 or 5 positions then this is a sign that the website has good authority.
How do websites gain this authority? First and most important is the site structure. The most important thing in search engine optimization is good content organization. It is vital for a spider to be able to easily navigate and find information on a website.
Most websites will never need to go four levels deep. First tier navigation which is the home page should easily direct to the second tier pages or also called roadmap pages. These pages will have the bulk of information,
The third tier will mostly comprise of product description pages with price, pictures, and to check out. Using your keywords effectively within this navigation making it clear for users and spiders to find information will improve the authority and trust of this website.
Clear navigation and content organization will help the website authority. These type of websites can do very well when they add a new page and will rank very well in the search engines. This is a sign that the search engines trust what this website has to say.
Another sign of website authority is getting double listed in the search engine results pages. This happens when you see an indented result. This means that the website has two pages that are ranking for that keyword phrase. This is a strong sign of authority.
The addition of continuing related content will dramatically a websites authority. The more that website can show that they know what they are talking about the more the search engines will treat it like the expert in the field. Old stagnet information will decrease a websites authority.
Off page factors are also helpful like inbound links and of course traffic. The more traffic a site gets the more of an authority it looks like to the search engines.