Are you finding it difficult to get visitors to your site?
Tired of writing plenty of content but nothing works?
You need to use Topical Authority if you want to rank well.
“Topical authority is a perceived authority over a niche or broad idea set, as opposed to authority over a singular idea or term.” – Search Engine Journal
Topic authority improves your site by providing a user with a broad range of content on a topic. This helps the user to educate themselves on many different areas of the topic by reading related questions, issues or information on the topic.
Search engines always look to provide relevant and useful articles to users so will rank articles higher if they have topical authority.
Topical authority is an important ranking factor.
Websites focused solely on one topic can outrank much larger more generic websites when writing content where they have topical expertise.
Does Google take topical authority into account when ranking content?
Yes, Google’s Search Quality Rater guidelines mentions E-A-T which stands for Expertise – Authoritativeness – and Trustworthiness.
So, from Google’s written guidelines we know topical authority and topical expertise are taken into account when calculating ranking positions.
“Cultivate a reputation for expertise and trustworthiness in a specific area .”
Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184?hl=en
If Google considers your site an authority on a topic, it’s likely people will as well. This means you will likely attract more links to your accounts which will boost your domain authority and increase the ranking of other pages on your site.
Benefits of implementing Topical Authority
Here are some of the benefits of implementing a strategy to gain topic authority:
- You can answer a wide range of questions about the topic.
- Increases the likelihood others will link to your website. (Because you are perceived to be an authority on the topic).
- Better user engagement. Users looking to get answers to related questions will remain on your site.
- Improves chances of appearing in search results. More likely to be able to answer a question on the topic because you have a range of pages covering all aspects of the topic.
- It’s totally under your control unlike backlinks and other ranking factors.
How to implement Topical Authority
Being an authority on a topic is about content. The more content you have on a topic the more keywords you can rank for on that topic.
You will appear to be an authority on the topic because you will have a great deal of content on the topic.
Covering many questions a user will have on a topic increases the likelihood the user will find the answers they are looking for on your site.
Use your favourite keyword discovery tool to get a list of related keywords for the topic. Write content for all related queries on a topic being careful not to overlap keywords on multiple pages.
Use internal links between related content on a topic.
First target the high volume related keywords so you can capture as much traffic on the topic as possible. Later, you can fill in missing content for lower competition keywords.
So, I just need lots of content on a topic?
No. Not exactly. You need to provide answers, not just content.
Are your articles helpful to a user? Do they answer questions a user is looking for?
Throughout your content you can provide links to other content on your site that answer related questions or dive deeper into a particular section of the topic.
Write an in depth guide to your topic
Think of your topic as a hub and spoke. At the hub you have an exhaustive article covering the main points of the topic. This article should be 2000+ words that introduce and explain the topic in detail.
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
Then add “spokes” or additional pages that answer related parts of the topic or answer questions people have about the topic. Find out what questions people have about a topic by using a keyword discovery tool or using Google autosuggest.
Ensure you have plenty of links between pages for the topic (so you website looks like the image on the right).
You can expanding the topic by either updating your main article or adding to your supplementary articles on the topic.
Ensure all pages on your topic follow the guidelines for on-page SEO: 29 SEO Tips and Tricks to help you rank better in Google.
Final Thoughts
Working towards topical authority helps you decide what content you need to write next. Find related keywords and other questions related to your existing content. Ensure your content has links to other related content on your site so users can move from one page to another.
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