4 Ways to Increase Your Website Authority in 2026

If you want to appear more prominently in both traditional and AI search results, building your website’s authority is crucial.

The good news is there are numerous ways to build lasting domain authority. 

In this article, you’ll learn more about the role website authority plays in search visibility and discover four concrete steps you can take to start improving your site’s authority. 

What Is Website Authority?

Website authority is how trustworthy and credible search engines and AI systems perceive a website to be.

Increasing your website’s authority can improve your visibility in search engines like Google and AI systems like ChatGPT. 

One way to gauge your website's authority is with Semrush's Authority Score metric. Authority Score is based on data about your site and is expressed as a number between zero and 100—the higher your score, the higher your chances of appearing prominently in search results.

You can find your site's Authority Score in Domain Overview (and a few other tools):

Comparing your Authority Score against your competitors’ scores is a helpful way to understand how authoritative you appear within your specific niche. 

How Is Website Authority Score Calculated?

Semrush’'s Authority Score, which is a useful way to gauge how authoritative you are in the eyes of search systems, is calculated using the following three elements:

1. Link power: The quantity and quality of the website's backlinks (links on other sites that point to the site in question)
2. Organic traffic: The estimated number of organic visits a site receives from search engines every month
3. Spam factors: An evaluation that looks for signs of link manipulation (questionable practices designed to trick search engines)

These elements combined provide a reliable estimate of your domain's overall authority from the perspective of search engines. Although search engines also take into account other factors like user experience and how optimized your website is on a technical level. 

Is Authority Score a Ranking Factor?

Authority Score and similar metrics are not ranking factors, as they’re third-party estimates of website authority.

Ranking factors are the metrics that Google uses in its algorithms to determine which search results should be prioritized in search results. And we don't know all the details on these complex systems.

That said, Semrush calculates Authority Score using metrics that are confirmed ranking factors. Like the number and quality of backlinks you have. So, Authority Score is a good way to gauge your website’s ranking potential.

What's a Good Authority Score?

A good Authority Score varies by industry, so compare your score with the scores of other websites in your niche or similar niches to get a sense of your authority.

For example, an Authority Score of 20 might seem low. But if the average Authority Score of websites in your industry is 15, then your score is actually quite good.

We analyzed the average Authority Scores of the top 10 organic rankings for 10 keywords across 10 different industries. Below is a table showing how the average Authority Score differs across these industries. 

Use Backlink Analytics to check how your Authority Score compares with your competitors' scores. 

Now, let's dig into concrete tips that can help you increase website authority.

4 Tips to Increase Your Website's Authority

Here are four concrete tips to increase website authority:

1. Get Quality Backlinks with Valuable Content

Gaining more high-quality backlinks can improve your website authority to potentially improve your search visibility.

A great way to acquire more quality backlinks is by creating link-worthy content that solves problems, provides unique insights, or offers utility. These are pieces other websites would be happy to link to because that content is valuable to their target audience. 

Focus on these proven linkable asset types:

• Original research and analysis: Survey your audience or analyze data to produce first-party insights. These pages become go-to resources that journalists and bloggers regularly cite.
• Comprehensive guides and ultimate resources: Create in-depth tutorials that cover topics more thoroughly than anything else available in your niche. These pages often become bookmarked references that earn links over time.
• Visual content and infographics: Present complex data or processes visually to make them highly shareable. They're frequently embedded in other content with attribution links.
• Free tools and calculators: Provide interactive resources that deliver immediate value, such as return on investment (ROI) calculators, assessment tools, and generators. They naturally attract backlinks from users who recommend them.

For example, McKinsey & Company published a piece of original research about the state of AI in 2025. And that page has 105K backlinks from 18.5K domains, according to Semrush's Backlink Analytics tool.

These backlinks to McKinsey & Company’s article suggest other articles refer to it as a source of reliable (i.e., authoritative) information.

Earning backlinks naturally will be easier if your content meets the following quality standards:

• Original: Includes original writing, reporting, or research
• Accurate: References the most current information
• Well-sourced: Properly cites and links out to expert sources
• Relevant: Topically related to your industry and current trends
• Evergreen: Has long-term value long after the publication date
• High value: Provides concrete and actionable takeaways for industry peers

After creating your link-worthy content, you can acquire backlinks more rapidly by reaching out to authoritative websites and asking them to link to what you’ve created.

To find good backlink opportunities, go to the Link Building Tool. Enter your domain and click "Start Link Building."

Follow the prompts to complete the setup, and then go to the "Prospects" tab within the Link Building Tool to see a list of websites you can contact to ask for backlinks. 

The Link Building Tool shows prospects’ Authority Scores to give you a better idea of which sites to prioritize. Links from websites with higher website Authority Scores are more likely to have a positive impact on your website’s visibility. 

When you find sites that you want to reach out to, select the checkboxes to the left of their names. Then, click the "To In Progress" button on the left side of the table.

Next, go to the "In Progress" tab. Scroll down and click "Contact" beside a website you want to reach out to.

Finally, write your message and send the message off. The Link Building Tool will help identify the email address you need for outreach.

Here’s a template you can use in your link building outreach:

Subject: Quick question about your [topic] article

Hi [Name],

I read your article on [specific topic] while I was researching [related subject], and I found your point about [specific detail they mentioned] really insightful.

I recently published a [type of content] on [your topic] that includes [unique value proposition: original data, comprehensive breakdown, visual resources, etc.]. I thought it might be a useful addition to your piece, particularly in the section where you discuss [relevant section of their article].

Here's the link if you'd like to take a look: [URL]

Either way, thanks for putting together such a thorough resource. I've bookmarked it for future reference.

Best,

[Your name]

2. Optimize Your Content for Relevant Keywords

Consistently creating valuable content around related topics that are specific to your niche can signal to search engines that you’re an authority in your industry.

Here's how to optimize your content for the right terms:

Perform Keyword Research

Keyword research helps you identify terms your target audience searches for, so you can create content that meets their wants and needs.

Find terms to optimize for with the Keyword Magic Tool. Just enter a seed keyword (a broad keyword related to your business), add your website’s domain, and click “Search.”

You’ll see a list of terms related to your seed keyword, along with metrics like:

• Volume: The number of monthly searches for the given keyword
• Personal Keyword Difficulty: An estimate of how difficult it is for your specific website to rank in the top 10 organic results based on your website's authority, topical relevance, and the level of competition for the keyword
• Topical Authority: Whether the keyword aligns thematically with your website's content
• Intent (search intent): What the searcher's goal is by searching this term 

In the example below, "dog bone" might not be the best term to target because this website's Personal Keyword Difficulty score is 61% for that keyword. So, this website is unlikely to rank in the top results.

To find keywords your website is more likely to rank for, use the “Personal KD %” filter to choose keywords with a maximum difficulty score (50% is a good starting point).

Jot down the most promising keywords. You’ll use them to generate topical groups to create quality, optimized content around.

Create Topic Clusters and Write Optimized Content

Creating topic clusters is one of the best ways to showcase topical expertise that translates to better search visibility.

A topic cluster is a group of thematically related pages that includes a pillar (main) page that explores the primary topic, along with cluster pages (subpages) that delve deeper into specific subtopics.

Use the Keyword Strategy Builder to plan content based on the most relevant terms you discovered when doing keyword research. You can enter up to five terms, then select your country and click "Create list."

Once Keyword Strategy Builder is ready, scroll down to the "Pages Details" section to see an overview of your pillar topics and subpages that support each topic.

When you're ready to start writing a piece of content, click the "Create brief or content" button to the right of a subpage or pillar page.

This will send your keywords to the Content Toolkit. Click “Create article” and the tool will start creating your draft.

As you refine the content, consider the primary search intent that Keyword Strategy Builder identified for the topic. There are four main types of search intent:

• Informational: Searchers are looking for specific information or the answer to a question (e.g., "what is a dog bone")
• Navigational: Searchers are looking for specific website or page (e.g., "petco store")
• Commercial: Searchers are doing research to inform a future purchase (e.g., "best dog bones")
• Transactional: Searchers are looking to make a purchase now or soon (e.g., "buy dog bones")

The keyword "marrow bones for dogs" has both commercial and informational intent. So, creating content that explains what marrow bones are, lists the benefits of marrow bones, and includes CTAs to pages that sell these products is a great way to target this keyword.

You’ll also want to strategically incorporate each page’s keywords in places like:

• The title tag
• The meta description
• The introduction
• Subheadings
• The body content

For more content optimization tips, see our on-page SEO checklist. 

3. Develop a Solid Internal Linking Strategy

When another website links to one of your pages, that page can gain authority. Internal links let you pass some of that authority to other pages on your site. This means if Page A has lots of backlinks, it can boost the ranking potential of Page B if you link to it from Page A.

Here are four ways to build an effective internal linking strategy that spreads your website authority:

Use Your Highest-Authority Pages Strategically

Some pages on your site will have more high-quality backlinks than others. These high-authority pages can strengthen other pages through internal links.

To find your strongest pages, use the Backlink Analytics tool. Go to the "Indexed Pages" tab to see which pages have the most referring domains. These are likely your most authoritative pages.

Link from these high-authority pages to the pages you most want to rank. For example, if your most-linked blog post is about industry trends, you might add internal links to related service pages or newer content with the goal of improving their rankings.

Connect Topic Clusters

If you’ve created topic clusters, you already have plenty of great internal linking opportunities. Within each cluster, link to the subpages from the pillar page and vice versa. Also link between related subpages where the connection makes sense for readers.

This cluster structure also signals to search engines that your site covers the topic comprehensively, which can reinforce your topical authority in that subject area.

Fix Orphan Pages

Orphan pages are pages on your site that don't have any internal links pointing to them. Without internal links connecting these pages to others on your site, these orphan pages are harder for search engines to discover and won't benefit from authority that could be passed to them by other pages.

Use Semrush’s Site Audit tool to identify orphan pages on your site. Run the audit, go to the “Issues” tab, and search for “orphan.” The tool will highlight any orphaned pages it detects. 

Address these issues by adding relevant internal links to the orphan pages from related content.

Find and Fix Broken Internal Links

Broken internal links are links that lead users (and search engines) to an error page when they try to access them. These broken internal links do not pass authority to other pages, and they lead to a poor user experience.

Use the Site Audit tool to identify broken internal links by typing “broken” into the search bar on the “Issues” tab. 

Click on the “# internal links are broken” issue to reveal the pages with broken links, and fix the links to ensure you’re passing authority across your pages.

4. Get Mentions from Across the Web

When other websites mention your brand, product, or content, it can signal to search engines and AI systems that your brand is authoritative—even if they don’t link to your website. 

Here are three ways to earn mentions from reputable sources across the web:

Build Relationships in Your Industry

Guest appearances on podcasts, contributions to industry roundups, and participation in expert panels all generate mentions that can reinforce your authority. These opportunities often come from genuine relationship-building with others in your space.

Look for:

• Podcast hosts that cover topics you know well
• Email newsletters that feature expert contributions
• Online communities where you can share expertise

Turn Mentions into Links

Sometimes websites mention your brand without linking to you. While the mention on its own can contribute to your authority, these unlinked mentions represent opportunities to gain backlinks from sites that already recognize you as a credible source.

Use a tool like the Brand Monitoring app to track mentions of your brand, products, or key personnel across the web. Plus, you can filter to only see mentions that don’t already have a link, so you can reach out and request a link where appropriate.

Get Listed in Relevant Directories

Getting listed in relevant directories can help local businesses increase their website authority. Search engines like Google look for consistent information about local and small businesses across directories to confirm they're trustworthy.

To start improving your website authority this way, identify the most important online directories in your industry. Then submit your business listing to those websites.

Here's a list of popular online directories to get you started:

• Yelp
• Tripadvisor
• OpenTable
• Thumbtack
• Angi

If you don't want to submit your business listing to each site manually (which can be tedious and lead to errors), use the Listing Management tool.

Monitor & Improve Your Domain's Authority

The four tips above can help you improve your website’s authority. And with Semrush’s Authority Score metric, you can keep track of your efforts over time. 

This way, as you make optimizations, build backlinks, and create high-quality content, you can get a better understanding of which tasks are having the biggest impact.

Use the tools in Semrush’s SEO Toolkit to grow and monitor your website’s authority today.