SEO tips: how to increase your website authority on keyword searches quickly

John Vuong -

If you own a site, you know how ranking for keywords is crucial. You also probably know that organic search results are the perfect place to come across new prospects and opportunities.

But here’s the thing ‒ SEO won’t always be what you want.

So what can you do? How do you guide search engines to rank a page based on the specific keyword that you want?

More importantly, how can you build your site authority over time?

In this post, we’ll discuss the ways how you can increase your site authority with keyword searches.

1. Identify target through keyword research

You probably know by now what specific keyword to target. However, you still have to check your instincts with facts. Some keyword tools give you insight on the search volume of a particular keyword so that it’s easier for you to come up with the right choice. You can even do keyword research for free with certain tools, although not as in-depth, it’s still worthwhile looking at if you are on a tight budget.

Select a keyword with a good search volume, but not too much volume- Ideally, you don’t want to target a keyword having a low search volume. You want to hunt down the popular ones.

But that doesn’t mean that you have to go for the keywords with the highest amount of difficulty, either. Chances are, these keywords are too competitive, and won’t be worth your time.

Select related keywords- You’re more likely going to successfully rank for keywords if the term you’re ranking for is related to your brand or business. Note that rankings aren’t vital unless they’re driving traffic and leads to your website.

Also, why not try to make related variations to your main keyword? It will be helpful when you’re optimizing your content in the future.

2. Understand your competitors

Once you’ve already decided with a keyword, do a quick search and find out how these keywords are already doing.

Focus your attention to:

  • Domains and URLs – Are there any match domains? Does every URL in the top results have a keyword?
  • Title – How is the keyword integrated into the title tags?
  • Type of content that’s ranking – Is it videos, blog posts, product pages?
  • Businesses that are ranking – Are they news sites? Giant brands? Or smaller pages?
  • The authority of these sites – You can use a tool to check for the age of these sites on the top 10, and how big are their link profiles, etc.

Remember to focus on doing more, and doing better. You have to put in the same effort with your competitors (or even more) if you want to outdo them. So, think of ways to make yourself stand out from the rest of the pack.

3. Focus on long-tail keyword phrases

With the rise of voice search, virtual assistants have now been increasingly popular. That’s why many users turn to voice instead of typing.

So, if you’re not adjusting keywords with this trend, you could be missing out a lot of opportunities.

To give you an idea, in a study of approximately 1.9 billion keywords, 29 percent of keywords with 10,001+ monthly searches compose of at least three words or more.

That’s why an excellent way of capturing your voice search audience is utilizing long-tail keywords.

When speaking users are going to ask, “what are the best SEO companies in New York?” instead of “best SEO companies in New York.”

As much as you can, use this conversational tone when it comes to selecting your keywords. That’s a surefire way to make your content appear on search pages.

4. Use keyword variations

Not every user is going to use the same phrase or keywords to search for something. That’s why it helps to have a single, targeted keyword phrase on each page of your site. That way, you’d find more balance and variety.

Stay relevant and try to avoid using repetitive content. Instead, focus on using relevant keywords and phrases that will make search engines rank your content based on the subject matter, and not just on the density of keywords.

5. Conceptualize the content creation

The next thing that you need to do is to plan for the content that will rank you on search engines based on your chosen keyword. There are many ways for you to rank your content for a keyword, such as:

  • articles
  • blog posts
  • product pages
  • directory of links
  • videos
  • infographics
  • authoritative guides

Take the time to conceptualize. How long do you have to create your content? Who will build it? Do you have the budget and all the resources that you need?

No matter what the size of your budget is, you can still come up with a blog post. Meanwhile, creating an infographic or a video will need more resources.

6. Make sure to do promotion

The next step that you need to take after publishing your content is to promote it. You need to think about how your material can get as many eyeballs as possible, even before it can even rank for a keyword.

Share your content on your various social media accounts: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. If you can, you can share these on your personal account as well.

Utilize widgets and social buttons on your website for independent sharing. Chances are, most readers and viewers are more likely to share your content if all they have to do is to hit the share button.

Moreover, build links to your content, because link building remains a crucial part of SEO.

7. Use your analytics data to do better decisions

Consider the web as a living medium. That’s why you need to optimize your content. Check your keyword rankings either manually, or by using a keyword ranking tool.

You can also use your analytics to see what specific keywords your content is ranking for. Note that there will be times that you’ll find out that those are not precisely the ones you’ve initially targeted.

If a couple of weeks have already passed and you’re still not ranking for your targeted keywords, see to it that your content is:

  • well-optimized
  • of the highest quality
  • truly visible

It may also be possible that the keyword you’re trying to rank for is too competitive. If that’s the case, try keywords that are less competitive until you’ve gradually built more authority.

Over to you

Ranking your keyword for organic searches take a lot of time and effort. Although you might not get the results that you want 100% of the time, if you take your content marketing, SEO, and these tips that we’ve discussed seriously, then it’s possible to make it happen!