5 Ways to Increase Your Website Authority in 2026

If you want to appear more prominently in traditional search results and AI answers, you need strong website authority.

Website authority in 2026 is no longer just about backlinks and domain scores.

It’s also about how clearly your site shows who you are, and whether other reputable sources consistently support your claims.

That means working on your content, your link profile, your site structure, and your visibility across the web.

In this article, you’ll learn five practical ways to build website authority.

What Is Website Authority?

Website authority is how trustworthy and credible your site appears to search engines and AI systems.

Increasing your website’s authority can improve your visibility in search engines like Google and in large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT.

One way to benchmark your site’s authority is Semrush’s Authority Score.

Authority Score is based on multiple signals about your site and ranges from 0 to 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 shows you how authoritative you appear within your niche.

Note: Website authority is different from brand and entity authority.

• Website authority: Covers site-level signals like backlinks, traffic, content quality, and technical health
• Brand authority: Perceived credibility and trust your brand carries through its reputation, proof points, and audience preference
• Entity authority: How consistently machines can identify your brand and connect it to the right topics, people, and offerings (like authors, products, and services)

These concepts overlap, and the tips in this article can strengthen all of them. But our main focus is website authority.

Today, authority is evaluated by both search engines and AI systems. Search engines still rely on traditional signals like backlinks, organic traffic, and content quality. But AI systems add another layer: they evaluate how easy your content is to extract and quote, whether your brand information is consistent across sources, and whether structured data clearly identifies who you are. Building authority means strengthening both.

How Is Website Authority Score Calculated?

Semrush’s Authority Score is calculated using three components that commonly reflect website authority: link power, organic traffic, and spam factors.

It’s a metric you can use to benchmark your site against competitors and track progress over time.

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. Search engines may also weigh other factors like user experience and technical SEO, while AI systems prioritize whether your content is crawlable and well-structured.

Authority Score is not a ranking factor itself, since it’s a third-party metric. But it’s calculated using signals that are confirmed ranking factors, like backlink quality and quantity. That makes it a reliable way to gauge your websites ranking potential and track progress over time. 

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. 

Industry	Average Authority Score (Top 10 Organic Rankings)
Finance	75
Pets	72.3
Travel	70.3
Real Estate	68.2
Healthcare	66.9
Fashion	66.5
Ecommerce	66.3
Marketing	65.7
Legal	55
Construction	53.1

Use Backlinks to check how your Authority Score compares with your competitors’ scores.

Now, let’s dig into concrete tips to increase website authority.

5 Tips to Increase Your Website’s Authority

1. Get Quality Backlinks with Valuable Content

High-quality backlinks are one of the strongest signals of website authority. Earning more of them directly improves your chances of ranking in search results. 

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 are happy to link to because they add value for their audience.

Focus on these proven linkable asset types:

• Original research and analysis: Survey your audience or analyze data to produce first-party insights that journalists and bloggers can cite
• Case studies with measurable outcomes: Share before-and-after results, methodology, and constraints so others can reference your findings with confidence
• Comprehensive guides and ultimate resources: Create in-depth tutorials that cover topics more thoroughly than competing pages
• Visual content and infographics: Present complex data or processes visually to make them more shareable and easier to reference
• Free tools and calculators: Provide interactive resources like ROI calculators, assessment tools, and generators that deliver immediate value

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 Backlinks tool.

Earning backlinks naturally will be easier if your content is original, accurate, well-sourced, and provides long-term value to your industry.

After creating your link-worthy content, you can acquire backlinks faster 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

Targeting the right keywords helps both ranking algorithms and AI models understand what your pages are about and who they’re for. 

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.

And Google’s December 2025 update appears to reward specialization and expertise over broad coverage.

For example, SEO expert Aleyda Solís analyzed the update’s impact across several verticals. In SaaS, for example, non-specialized sites like Zapier, Adobe, and CNBC lost rankings for terms like “accounting software for small business” and “expense report forms,” while specialized tools like FreshBooks and Xero gained visibility.

Topic clusters can help you build that kind of focused coverage across your niche.

So when planning your clusters, choose topics that map to what you want your brand to be known for.

Here’s an example of a topic cluster:

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.

Align Content with Search Intent

Matching your content to search intent helps you attract the right audience and rank for the right terms. 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. 

Structure Your Content for AI Retrieval

AI systems pull answers from content that’s structured in short, self-contained blocks.

Start each section with a direct answer to the heading’s question in the first one to two sentences. 

This “bottom line up front” approach is sometimes called chunking, where each section becomes a self-contained block that answers a single question. 

This makes it easier for both readers and AI models to find key information quickly, without reading through long sections to get to the answer.

Here are a few other formatting techniques that help with retrieval:

• Use question-based headings (e.g., “What Is Domain Authority?” instead of just “Domain Authority”)
• Follow each heading with an immediate, complete answer
• Use bulleted lists for steps, features, or comparisons
• Add tables when comparing multiple items side by side
• Keep paragraphs short so each one covers a single point

The more structured and scannable your content, the easier it is for AI systems to retrieve and cite specific answers from your pages.

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 that 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 five 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 Backlinks 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.

Optimize Your About Page and Link to It Consistently

Your About page should be the most complete, accurate representation of your brand on your entire site, because that’s where search engines and AI systems go to understand who you are.

Make sure it clearly states your credentials, proof points (like case studies, awards, or client logos), and trust markers (like editorial standards or methodology). 

Then link to your About page consistently from author bios, editorial standards pages, and key product or service pages. When these pages all point back to one definitive source, it reinforces your credibility across the site.

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, 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 strengthens how authoritative your brand appears across search and AI, even without a direct link to your site.

Here are five tips to earn mentions from reputable sources:

Identify Your Trust Hubs

Start by listing the 15 to 20 domains that consistently appear when buyers search for recommendations in your category.

Run a few queries your audience would search, like:

• “best general-seo”
• “general-seo vs general-seo”
• “top general-seo tools”

Depending on your niche, this can include review platforms (like G2 or Capterra), industry publications, major directories (when relevant), Wikipedia or Wikidata entries, and community platforms like Reddit.

Focus your outreach and PR efforts on earning mentions on these specific sites. A single placement on a high-trust source can carry more weight than dozens of mentions on lesser-known blogs.

That’s because both Google and AI answer engines treat these sources as reference points when generating results and recommendations. If your brand appears on a site that AI models already trust and cite frequently, that association strengthens your own credibility.

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 strengthens website authority for local businesses. Search engines 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.

Get Discussed in Public Communities

Community and social platforms play a growing role in how AI systems assess brand credibility. 

According to a Semrush study, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Quora are among the most cited domains on LLMs.

AI models frequently retrieve data from community discussions when generating answers. So authentic user sentiment about your brand can directly influence how AI systems perceive you.

Engage genuinely in communities where your audience is active. Answer questions, share useful resources, and contribute to discussions without being overly promotional. 

Over time, these organic mentions build a layer of third-party validation that’s difficult to manufacture.

5. Build an AI-Friendly Content Structure

An AI-friendly content structure makes your pages easy to crawl, read, and attribute.

When key content is blocked, hard to render, or poorly labeled, AI systems may skip it or summarize it incorrectly.

Here are three areas to focus on:

• Crawler access
• JavaScript-heavy rendering
• Schema markup (structured data)

Make Sure Crawlers Can Access Your Key Pages

If crawlers can’t reach your content, none of your other authority-building efforts will matter.

Check your robots.txt file to make sure it isn’t blocking important pages from crawlers. 

Some sites accidentally block AI-specific crawlers like OAI-SearchBot (used by ChatGPT) or PerplexityBot while trying to manage crawl traffic. 

If these bots can’t access your content, your pages won’t appear in AI-generated answers.

You can use Semrush’s Site Audit tool to check for these issues. 

In the “Overview” report, look at the “Blocked from AI Search” widget to see if any specific AI crawlers are restricted. 

Then go to the “Issues” tab and filter for “AI Search” to see a full list of other problems affecting your AI visibility and their recommended fixes.

Reduce JavaScript Dependency for Key Content

AI crawlers and some search engine bots struggle to render content that relies heavily on JavaScript to load.

If your main content (articles, product descriptions, key landing pages) only appears after JavaScript executes, some crawlers may not see it at all. This means your content could be invisible to AI systems even if it’s technically published.

Semrush’s Site Audit tool can help identify JavaScript rendering issues on your website.

During configuration, make sure “JS rendering” is toggled on in the “Crawler” tab.

Then go to your “JS Impact” tab to see insights into how your site behaves before and after JavaScript rendering.

For instance, you might see a title on a page change or disappear after rendering.

As a general rule: use server-rendered or static HTML for your primary content.

Save JavaScript for interactive elements like filters, calculators, or dynamic features rather than for loading the main text of a page.

Add Schema Markup to Your Site

Schema markup is code you add to your pages that tells search engines and AI systems exactly what your content is about. It turns information that humans can read (like your company name, author, or product details) into structured data that machines can understand.

The most common format is JSON-LD, which is a small block of code placed in your page’s HTML. 

You don’t need to change anything visible on the page. The code runs in the background and helps AI systems identify key details about your business.

Start with the schema types most relevant to your site:

• Organization: Your company name, logo, contact information, and social profiles
• Person: Author names, credentials, and their connection to your organization
• Product: Product details, pricing, and availability
• FAQPage: Question-and-answer pairs on a single page
• HowTo: Step-by-step instructions or tutorials

Most content management systems (like WordPress, Shopify, and Wix) offer schema plugins or built-in options that let you add structured data without editing code directly. 

You can also use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to generate schema by tagging elements on your page visually. 

For a detailed walkthrough, see our guide to schema markup. 

Two properties are especially useful for AI visibility. 

The @id property gives each entity on your site (your brand, your authors, your products) a unique identifier so machines can distinguish them from similar names. 

{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Organization",
"@id": "https://example.com/#organization",
"name": "Example Company",
"url": "https://example.com"
}

The sameAs property connects your site to your official profiles on platforms like LinkedIn, Wikipedia, or Wikidata, helping AI systems verify that all these profiles belong to the same entity.

{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Organization",
"@id": "https://example.com/#organization",
"name": "Example Company",
"url": "https://example.com",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/example-company/",
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q123456",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example_Company"
]
}

For example, your Organization schema might include a sameAs link to your official LinkedIn company page, your Wikidata entry (if you have one), and your official social media profiles. This helps AI systems confirm your brand identity across the web.

{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "Example Article Title",
"author": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Jordan Lee",
"@id": "https://example.com/authors/jordan-lee/#person"
},
"publisher": {
"@type": "Organization",
"@id": "https://example.com/#organization"
}
}

Monitor & Improve Your Domain’s Authority

You improve website authority faster when you track a few key metrics and use them to prioritize what to fix or build next.

Start with your Authority Score trend in Domain Overview. A rising score usually means your authority signals are strengthening. Compare your score against competitors in your niche to see where you stand.

Then check your referring domains and link quality in Backlinks. More relevant, reputable referring domains are a stronger signal than simply having more links. Use this data alongside your Authority Score to understand whether your link-building efforts are attracting the right sites.

For AI performance, use the AI Visibility Toolkit. Its “Visibility Overview” report shows your AI Visibility Score, total mentions, and cited pages across various LLMs. If AI systems are citing your content for your key topics, that’s a practical signal that your authority is strong enough to be used as a source.

You can access all of these tools in one place with Semrush One, which combines the full SEO Toolkit with the AI Visibility Toolkit so you can track both traditional and AI authority from a single dashboard.

Sign up today and get a 7-day free trial of Semrush One.