Scorsese, Spielberg and Lucas. Just like them you need to be an authority in your field.
A website needs to be developed and improved over time. You can’t just set up a site and leave it there. That’s the key to having an authoritative website. Here are five key things you can do to ensure that your website stays fresh and relevant. Engagement is important, as is tying each piece of content to an author, setting up a YouTube channel and multiple social media channels, having a natural link profile and managing your reputation.
Quality content gets engagement
Getting engagement and also some comments and shares and so on are important for your website. Good quality content gets engagement. Even though Google doesn’t necessarily spell out in their recently released Quality Guidelines that engagement must be high, we see a high correlation between websites that have Plus Ones on Google Plus and those that are ranking very highly. So if they’re not taking direct influence by it, there is still some correlation. You’re going to be best set up by trying to get that engagement.
This is covered by Panda which was about everything that was happening on your website.
Are you the expert?
The following points relate to links. Google is really keeping an eye on a website’s reputation and also the reputation of individual users. They want the experience of real users to help determine whether someone is an expert in their particular field. They also want to make sure that every piece of content on a website is tied to an actual creator. They want to know who has created that content and who is taking ownership of it.
Set up YouTube and Google Plus
One of the ways Google can apply ownership to particular content is through some of their properties. That’s how Google gets to know who you are and finds out about your reputation.
So it’s an absolute must to make sure that you control your Google Local profile, set up a YouTube channel and a Google Plus profile. You may be concerned that Google Plus is just another social media platform you have to manage. But this one is absolutely key because it’s owned by Google. Next to links, one of the highest correlations between high ranking sites are ones that have Plus Ones. A high number of Google+ Plus Ones tend to correlate very highly with highly ranked websites. So you need to have that in place.
You also need to look to have multiple social media channels. This is about building up your authority in different spaces. It helps you diversify and become less single source dependent. If you can build up a community and have your prospects and clients engage with you on social media, that is a great way not to be so reliant on one source.
Maintain a Natural link profile
Google has this process of looking round at other websites. They’re looking for a natural link profile with a variety of links from a variety of different sources. Google has different sources of reputation information where they go to look to find out about your reputation as an individual and also as a business. You need to make sure you’ve got well placed, high quality content in these different places.
Manage your reputation
You really need to be monitoring your own reputation. Google will recommend that its quality raters go out and as they’re researching your reputation and your website’s reputation, they’re looking for negative reviews and they’re looking for positive reviews. They understand all businesses, once they reach a certain size, will have some negative reviews. But on the whole they want to be seeing a good positive reputation. So now more than ever, it’s critical that you manage your reputation online.
You want to be setting up Google Alerts for your name, your business name, your brand terms and monitor what is being said on the web about your business. When someone does say something that might not be favourable, you need to be there with your response. There is a very real chance that a quality reviewer will go by and read that and potentially give your website a low reputation if you’ve got that sort of information out there. So start to really monitor it.
Maintain your website
These items are an absolute must. Every single website should be focussing on these. With engagement, expertise, a YouTube channel and Google Plus, a natural link profile from a variety of sources and a good reputation, your website will thrive. It is well worth the effort needed to ensure you add all of these elements to your site.
Discover what it takes to build an authoritative website and how to effectively promote it online. Click here to check out the Authority Content System.