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Building SEO Authority with Google
What is your site worth, in terms of how much value it adds to the web? Is your website a reliable source of information?
Authority is a big thing regarding Google and SEO. It's synonymous with importance and trust - and if you are important and trusted - you're not going to find it very difficult to get to the top of the search results now and then.
The way Google sees it, is that if people go to your website for the latest news and people link to your website to share it and discuss it, then it must be of some importance. This news could be about anything from international news, to about your new pet hamster, Keith - the good part is that the principle remains the same.
Although, with building SEO authority, it may not be the aim of your website to be a resource for the latest news, so how else do you gain this trust and respect on the web?
Getting in with the big guys...
With Google being Google, the only people that really know what's going on and how it all works are (a couple of) people that work there! As a result, there's no definitive list of websites or organisations that Google seem to trust or hold as a valuable resource. Although, they do follow a suit that you would expect them to - so Governments and similar International Organisations tend to come first, then further down the line are the (more trustworthy) media (i.e. not "hot gossip" magazines, but rather CNN and the BBC).
Then comes big websites, FULL of information such as Wikipedia and thousands of other high-traffic websites with high PageRank's and thousands of links... Then, finally comes you.
Depressed yet? Well, don't feel too overwhelmed or lose hope... It does take time, but there are many ways that you can begin to increase your SEO authority.
Links
Generally speaking, you want links from wherever you can get them, especially from those with a higher Google PageRank. Why? Because sites with a higher ranking are generally more reliable, have more authority and usually have much more traffic! Getting a link from anywhere like the BBC website (PageRank 9/10) will help a vast amount towards building your authority, no matter what the cause is for them linking to you.
Traffic
Whether or not the people coming to your website are the people you want, lots of traffic to any website will suggest to search engines that it is somewhat important and of interest - which makes a fair amount of sense. If a website is steadily growing in popularity and many people are finding it from respectable and well-trusted websites, then that website would very likely be a good resource of information.
Your Domain
You will often find that older domains will come higher up in the rankings because they have earnt 'trust' over the years, so keep hold of your domain and maintain the same domain owner for as long as possible. It can also come in handy to have a more 'authoritive' domain TLD. Anyone can go and sign up for a .com or .co.uk, but in order to get a .edu or .ltd.uk you have to go through a long registration process, prove your identity and have a good reason for wanting one!
Your Website
Does you website contain unique content that is easy to read and follow? Is it human-friendly? Is it growing with information, depth and interest (links)? It's self-explanitory that the answer to these questions should be, 'yes'. If they are, then in time you will see that things generally pick up.
It's always hard starting from scratch, or re-gaining that lost momentum with anything and it's the same with SEO. Once you get the right things in to place and get the ball rolling. Over time, your authority will gradually increase along with your Google PageRank and you will become a trusted source of high-quality information and this will help to get you to the top of those search results.