Can SEO increase a page's Authority? Or can Authority only be earned via #RCS?

[danatanseo]

Hi all. I am asking this question to purposefully provoke a discussion. The CEO of the company where I am the in-house SEO sent me a directive this morning. The directive is to take our Website from a PR3 site to a PR5....in 6 months.

Now, I know Page Rank is a bit of a deprecated concept, but I'm sure you would agree that "Authority" is still crucial to ranking well.

When he first sent me the directive it was worded like this "I want a plan in place with the goal being to "beat" a specific competitor in 6 months." When I prodded him to define "beat," i.e. did he mean "outrank" for every keyword, he answered that he wanted our site to have the same "Authority" that this particular competitor has.

So I am left pondering this question: Is it possible for SEO to increase the authority of a page? Or does "Authority" come from #RCS?

The second part of this question is what would you do if you were in my shoes? I have been devoting huge amounts of time on technical SEO because the Website is a mess. Because I've dedicated so much time to technical issues, link-earning has taken a back seat. In my mind, why would anyone want to link to a crappy site that has serious technical issues (slow load times, no persistent cart, lots of 404s, etc)? Shouldn't we make the site awesome before trying to get people to link to us?

Given this directive to improve our site's "Authority" - would you scrap the technical SEO and go whole hog into a link-earning binge, or would you hunker down and pound away at the technical issues? Which one would you do first if you couldn't do both at the same time?

Comments, thoughts and insights would be greatly appreciated.

[Dr-Pete]

I like that approach a lot. Thanks for the heads up.

[danatanseo]

I thought I'd let everyone reading this thread that AJ Kohn just published a new post that directly addresses this very issue: http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/new-ways-to-track-keyword-rank

Dr. Pete, AJ's post echoes what you said in the comments here exactly. You said "1) Try to come up with a tangible metric, like average ranking across a set of keywords, or total organic search traffic, or total queries, etc. that you can show the boss is more connected to actual traffic and sales. If you can get him to accept a metric that's more on your terms, it'll be better for both of you."

AJ's suggestion "A rank index is also a great way to report to C Level executives. These folks understand index funds from an investment perspective. They get this approach and you can steer them away from peppering you with ‘I did this search today and we’re number 4 and I want to be number 1′ emails.

It becomes not about any one term but the aggregate rank of that index. That’s a better conversation to have in my opinion. A rank index keeps the conversation on how to move the business forward instead of moving a specific keyword up."

HIs post includes step-by-step instructions. Being the Excel moron that I am, I'm going to have to spend some time creating the suggested pivot tables, but hey, I have 6 months right?

The timing of this post was pretty spot on and I appreciate you all for giving me some direction on a situation that could have been not so productive.

[danatanseo]

I think that's a great suggestion Pete. Fortunately, diplomacy is one of my strengths, so if I approach it right I think it will work. I really like the idea of showing how many terms we are beating them at now and then working to improve that. That's realistic, measurable and best of all attainable. It also gives a nod to the vanity element that is in play here.

I think the hard part is the "moving competitor." One week the CEO will be complaining that we don't beat Competitor X, Y Z  so I start tracking them and then he comes in and says now he wants to beat competitors A, B, C and this group will have very little in common with X,Y, Z or even us in some cases. That's the case with Competitor X. They aren't even technically a competitor. The moving target thing drives me nuts. Define your business,define your real competitors (not who you'd like them to be) and then I can set solid SEM goals that will benefit the business goals.

I know, I know....I'm preaching to the choir!  Wish me luck guys. I'll let you know how it goes. If you see my resume show up in your mail, you'll know it may not have gone well

[Dr-Pete]

Yeah, the diplomacy is the hard part. I had a client who I literally spent about 4 hours of CRO work on (as a test project) with surprisingly good results, and they didn't care. They then went out and spent $10K on a new logo (I'll save my opinions about that project).

Middle ground - could you create 1-2 vanity metrics of your own. Take all the keywords tracked, show how many your beating the competition in right now, and try to get that number, up, for example. Or create some derivative of organic traffic (put it on a 100 point scale, with 100 being the best-of-all-possible worlds goal). Obviously, these paths can be dangerous, too, and any one metric can always be misleading. I'm just thinking that, if you have to pick one, better for you to pick it than him.

[EGOL]

During 2012 the ranking of our best retail site for its "trophy keyword" (singluar and plural) (which is an EMD by the way) fell from position 4 to position 8.   However, sales on that site were up about 40% because we attacked all of the minor keyword to the point of keyword cannibalism and we added a few more products.

The amount of traffic coming into the site for the trophy KW is tiny compared to the more highly qualified buyers coming in through the longtail purchase-intent keywords.

[danatanseo]

True EGOL. I think the real irony in this particular instance is that "Competitor X" doesn't even consider us to be their competition. Sure we have some crossover in our product lines, but our core customers are completely different people, not even in the same industries. He just wants to "beat" them because he knows they are located close by (they are in Tacoma, we are in Olympia). I'm 100% certain that whatever link-building strategies they are or aren't using are not done out of a desire to compete with us. I don't think we're even on their radar.

Our toughest competitors are the big guys like Sweetwater, Musician's Friend and Guitar Center. They have budgets we can only dream of. Most of our "real" competitors (companies aboutthe same size, catering to a similar customer base) don't outrank us. We actually do quite well against them. Unless the goal is to move out of our niche (we target the church market) and go mainstream (with a similar online budget as a company like Sweetwater), I just don't think trying to "beat" this particular competitor is an effective apprach.

[danatanseo]

Thanks EGOL for your wonderful an insightful comments. Fortunately, I am very comfortable asking questions and I think he and I could have a good discussion. There is only one inhibitor and I do believe, as Dr. Pete mentions below, that vanity or ego definitely come into play.

I really like how you separate out items by things that effect the bottom line and things that reduce risk to our rankings. I like that angle and I think he can understand that.

My initial response to his request was this:

"Thanks [name removed]. Just for clarification, can you define what it will mean to beat [Competitor X]? Outrank them for every keyword?  I don’t think that’s realistic. Beat them in links? Adding 540,000 links in 6 months isn’t a realistic goal either. Are we wanting to beat them for selected keywords? If so, which ones? I have a list of about 754
keywords I’ve been tracking against competitors since last March, including
specifically [keyword A], [Competitor B], [keyword C] and a lot [250 or so] of media
terms [I’m sure we already beat Competitor X on those].  If I remove the media
terms from tracking I would have room for many more keywords that perhaps are
more relevant to competition between us and Competitor X. Would you like me to take
those media terms out and replace them with keywords common to both Competitor and Us? If there are specific keywords that you would like me to target that
aren’t already on the attached list, can you send me those so I can add them?
The spreadsheet also includes our current ranking for the terms [last updated 1/3,
next crawl is tomorrow 1/10.

I have been tracking these
competitors in SEOMoz Pro tools: [Competitor A],  [Competitor B] and
[Competitor C] because those were the top competitors you identified earlier this year  I only have room to track 3. Would you
like me to take out one and replace them with [Competitor X]? Let me know.

I love a challenge, but I need a clearer definition of the end goal and what would be considered a success.
Thanks!"

It was in response to this email that he stated that he wanted to "beat" competitor X on Page Authority (PageRank).

I think this fixation on specific keyword tracking is not productive. Randomly choosing a broad keyword like "shure microphones" and typing it into Google and being upset if we aren't on the first two pages is illogical to me. If that term brings in poorly qualified traffic and doesn't result in any revenue, then who cares if we don't rank for it. I'd rather rank for a really ugly misspelling that produces measurable results in line with our business goals. But, as I commented below, that's not quite as sexy as ranking for a big, shiny vanity keyword.

[danatanseo]

Thanks Dr. Pete. This is great advice. You hit the nail on the head with your phrase "vanity metric." That's really all it is.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, I succeed at raising the PR from 3 to 5, but sales tank, how does that get us closer ot our ultimate business goals? It doesn't. But hey, the boss will have his PR5.

I just think this fixation on vanity metrics and vanity keywords is not productive. I just created a conversion optimization strategy and proposal that could raise sales by $440,000 a year. I did solid research and rock solid numbers. The technical problems we've fixed so far have helped increase traffic. Organic traffic is up 50% year over year since they brought me on, but conversion rate is down 37%. This just seems like a no brainer to me....but it's not very sexy I guess, because it doesn't involve randonly punching in briad keywords into Google and seeing who we "beat" or who beats us.

I'm going to have to think on this and frame a very diplomatic approach to a path that I think will be productive and positively impact our real business goals.

[EGOL]

Yes....  and... how much SEO activity are your competitors engaged in?   You can look for evidence of this going forward using SEOmoz tools or backwards if you have historical data.

If you have evidence that competitors are making war then you might want to let the boss know about it because if they are shoveling more resources into it than you are then your ranks could go down no matter what you are working on.

Nothing is a better justification for more resources than the enemy on the attack.

[Dr-Pete]

Tend to agree with EGOL, but I'll add some specific thoughts of my own:

(1) Try to come up with a tangible metric, like average ranking across a set of keywords, or total organic search traffic, or total queries, etc. that you can show the boss is more connected to actual traffic and sales. If you can get him to accept a metric that's more on your terms, it'll be better for both of you. I completely agree with EGOL that chasing PR or "authority" is a bit of an affectation.

(2) If he's stuck on something like authority, make sure to define it, and stack the deck. Our metrics - DA and PA, are tricky, and are based on machine learning. In reality, we're trying to predict how well you'll rank. So, we can't really say that authority comes from any one source. Traditionally, authority is things like high-trust, high-PR links, social mentions, and other "brand" signals, but that's very difficult to measure.

(3) I'd also say that whether on-page or links are more valuable really depends on your situation. I've seen a client's organic traffic triple in a few months because we fixed some on-page messes. Likewise, if you've got a Panda penalty due to thin content, then increasing your "authority" 50% could do nothing until you fix the on-page mess. If you've got a beautiful site, architecturally, but have no inbound links, building authority could be like magic. It's a mistake to focus on only one side of the equation.

I think (1) and (3) are intertwined. You really need to make the case: "Do you want a vanity metric, or do you want results?"

[EGOL]

The directive is to take our Website from a PR3 site to a PR5....in 6 months.

I know a couple SEOs outside of the USA who got directives like that because the boss wanted to start selling a few links.  

But, if you are in the USA, this sounds like a directive from a person who really likes bling... wears big gaudy rings... who thinks that size is everything... and who likes to pull out a fat wallet at the store... drives big fancy cars...  and...   maybe has hair like Donald Trump.    

Now if you are working at a place like that then you better get busy on raisin' the PR... and lookin' for another job.

If you are in a biz niche where most of the sites are very low PR then you are going to be stuck buying links to pull this off.   There I would look for another job first and then worry about the PR.

How comfortable are you asking the boss if he would prefer an increase of PR from 3 to 5 or if he would prefer an nice increase in your profits?  A company can spend a lot of resources raising the PR...

This boss might think that PR is the secret to SEO and that you are not workin' on it.

If I was comfortable asking questions I would go in and say...  I can work on a limited number of the following over the next six months...  tell me where you want me to spend my time....

--- improve conversion rate

--- bring in more traffic

--- make site look better to improve corp image and maybe improve conversion

--- get us ranking for new product lines

These things hit our bottom line....

I can also work on.....

--- solving tech issues that could damage our rankings

--- work on thin/dupe content issues that could damage our rankings

These things reduce risk.  We don't want 50% of traffic to disappear.

Or, I can do the following that will increase our PR - fast - like in six months (PR is a log scale - yaknow)

--- buy some links

--- rent some links

These things might increase our PR and have other unintended benefits.

You're the boss.  Tell me what you want me workin' on.