How to get more Authority

[hamncheese]

Hello,

I have done lots of work on SEO on my websites over the past year and am getting good ranking for most keywords. I am almost top 5 for all of them.

But, as you guys may know, there is no second place. CTR on #1 spot is much much higher than #2. I have seen #1 getting a 40-50% CTR while a #2 spot only gets 5-10%. By the way, what is your experience with this?

So, I noticed that the only way for me to get to #1 on the most competative keywords is by getting much more authority, = higher PR. I have a ton of backlinks with very specific anchortext. Some of my sites have over 10,000 backlinks to the home page alone. Internal linking structire is very solid and I have many internal pages (1,000+) indexed in google.

So, how can I get more authority without spending too much??? Backlinks from trusted sites with high PR??? If yes, where do I get these from? Maybe start a campaign on Payperpost??? Maybe Press Releases? Renting Links?

Looking forward to some guidance!

Thanks in advance

HP

 

[djbaxter]

I have done lots of work on SEO on my websites over the past year and am getting good ranking for most keywords. I am almost top 5 for all of them.

But, as you guys may know, there is no second place. CTR on #1 spot is much much higher than #2. I have seen #1 getting a 40-50% CTR while a #2 spot only gets 5-10%. By the way, what is your experience with this?

You do not need to be #1. You do need to be on the first page of results and preferably within the top 5.

Whether you can achieve a good CTR with less than a #1 ranking depends on the first impression you make in the search results, and that in turn depends very much on the combination of your page title and the snippet below your listing.

The source of that snippet will depend of course on the specific search term used to find your site but typically it will be taken from eigther the meta description tag or on-oage content. That's a good part of why those elements are so important.

You've got only a couple of hundred characters, combined between the page title and the snippet, to grab the searcher's attention. If you've written the page content well and the description and page title well, you can and will beat out pages that rank higher in the search results for other reasons (e.g., anchor text in incoming links that is an exact match to the search term).

So, I noticed that the only way for me to get to #1 on the most competative keywords is by getting much more authority, = higher PR.

Authority is not the same as PageRank and higher PR does not necessarily mean more authority. The exact definition of authority is unknown but probably has to do with site age, and the number of backlinks from relevant sites. And again you do not need to be #1 to be succesful - see above.

I have a ton of backlinks with very specific anchortext. Some of my sites have over 10,000 backlinks to the home page alone. Internal linking structire is very solid and I have many internal pages (1,000+) indexed in google.

So, how can I get more authority without spending too much??? Backlinks from trusted sites with high PR??? If yes, where do I get these from? Maybe start a campaign on Payperpost??? Maybe Press Releases? Renting Links?

The question is where are those backlinks coming from?

 

[hamncheese]

Great,

Thank you for all the helpful advice. It looks like I was a little off on some of the things. I think you are right. My meta tags may be written a little too much for the Search Engines which may harm the CTR.

By the way, other ways to improve CTR could be to add google checkout as well as McAfee secure - both will give you a little image next to your listing which will grab more attention. What is your thought?

Thanks again!

HP

 

[djbaxter]

My general feeling is to try to look as professional as possible and to avoid gimmicks. I don't think the icons you nmention will hurt but does the average surfer or shopper even know what they are?