Topical Authority: How to Earn It, and Why It Matters

If you have been involved in content marketing, and SEO, chances are you have heard the term “topical authority” thrown around a lot.

However, that does not necessarily make it more understandable. You may have been wondering what exactly it means, but are too afraid to ask.

But there is nothing to be afraid of. Today we are going to answer all your questions.

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What Is Topical Authority?

In search engine optimization, topical authority is the idea of a website aiming to become the biggest authority on one or more topics.

Let’s say you are running a computer repair service. Logically, you would want to have authority in the computer repair niche, so that potential customers will perceive you as an expert, and someone they can trust to fix their computer problems.

Building such authority will also help search engines to understand what your website is about, and rank it better for keywords related to the topic. Google uses the E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness) guidelines to evaluate content.

Reaching Google’s standards might not be easy, and might take some time, but it would definitely be worth it, since you will appear much higher in the SERPs, which will increase your visibility, traffic, and so forth.

Something you should avoid at all costs is writing about topics that you know very little about. For instance, if your computer repair service website, all of a sudden, uploads a post about the diplomatic relationship between Austria-Hungary, people would be confused, to put it mildly.

Users, who deem your website to be an authority, will start wondering what is going on. Overall, you will start giving mixed signals to your readers, which will do you no good.

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Why Is Topical Authority Important?

As we mentioned, topical authority is important for both SEO, and audiences. It is beneficial to your website’s content marketing strategy, since it can bring you more user interactions, like traffic, clicks, and so forth.

Continuing with our example, if you are running a computer repair business, you would want to rank high for terms related to the business, like “computer hardware issues”, “common computer problems”, “how to fix computer freezing”, etc.

These are all terms that people interested in your services will likely search. Now, naturally, you cannot fit everything into a single article, so this is where topic clusters come into play.

They allow you to structure your content into smaller chunks, and cover entire, complex topics. Successfully doing so will eventually earn you the much needed topical authority. In other words, when a person is experiencing issues with their PC, your brand will pop into their minds.

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How to Build Topical Authority: 5 Easy-to-Follow Steps

1. Research Keywords in Your Niche
2. Create Content That Resolves Issues
3. Make Topic Clusters
4. Build High-Quality Links
5. Optimize the Metadata of Your Website

1. Research Keywords in Your Niche

A beginner’s trap when it comes to keyword research is to only focus on the most competitive keywords. Such keywords are very hard to rank for, even more so if you are a newer website.

As Tony Wright, CEO at WrightIMC once said: “And in SEO, being the best doesn’t always mean being number one for the most competitive keyword phrase.”

In fact, focusing on low competition keywords can often turn out to be a better strategy. Imagine it like this, which perspective do you think would be better for your business – being number one for a single, but extremely competitive, term, or being number one for twenty keywords, although with a lower search volume?

Well, ideally you can do both, but for starters, going with the low competition keywords would be a better plan. They will give you the necessary platform to eventually establish authority, and be able to rank for those sought-after competitive keywords.

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2. Create Content That Resolves Issues

Remember that the primary goal of your content is not to please search engines, and rank well. That will come eventually, once you realize that the goal of your content is to resolve the issues of people, and provide them with valuable answers and advice.

This goes through understanding user search intent, i.e., what is the reason behind a Google search, what was the person looking for when they typed in the keyword.

For instance, a person looking to buy a new sofa will probably type in something like “comfortable sofa sets” or “best sofa for small spaces”. Alternatively, if the same person wants to obtain more information, they will most likely look up things like, “the pros and cons of a leather sofa” or “how to clean a sofa at home”.

Understanding the search intent is very important, as it will allow you to properly target your audience and give them the content they are expecting to find.

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3. Make Topic Clusters

We’ve already touched on the topic of clusters, so now let’s elaborate. In simple terms, a topic cluster is a group of articles that are centered around a certain topic.

For example, you are running a review website, and you want to focus on reviewing drones, and create a cluster around them.

So, you write your pillar page – The Best Drones. Then you create several articles with more specifics – Best Drone Under $100, Best Drone Under $500, Best Drone for Kids, Best Drones for Photography, etc.

Then you place strategic internal links between the articles. In the end, you have an entire content hub for drone reviews, which you can continue to develop.

Users can easily go to your website, and find the information on drones they need. Voilà, you have now become an authority on drones, and have established your brand as a reliable source of information for the topic.

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4. Build High-Quality Links

Link building is an essential part of SEO. While you need to make sure to gain authoritative, and relevant links from reputable sources, you cannot completely control the process.

To illustrate this, if you have a small news website, getting links from established sites like CNN, BBC, Reuters, etc., will give you a big boost. Meanwhile, links from a real estate agency website will be less relevant to your niche.

So, what link-building tactics can you try to gain relevant and authoritative backlinks?

• HARO. Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a platform that gives you the opportunity to earn backlinks from high-authority websites by providing your expert opinion on queries.
• Skyscraper technique. SEO expert Brian Dean introduced the skyscraper technique back in 2015. In short, it is a method of acquiring backlinks that requires you to create the go-to resource for a topic, and get tons of links coming your way.
• Guest blogging. The goal of guest blogging is to create useful content for websites that are topically related to yours, and position yourself as an expert, thus increasing your authority.

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5. Optimize the Metadata of Your Website

Another beneficial tactic to increase your topical relevance is to optimize the metadata of your website. This includes title tags, meta descriptions, relevant internal linking, and creating sitemaps.

Adding all these pieces of information will help your search engine optimization. Of course, you should not just add any keywords. Instead, research the ones that make the most sense for your business, and could help you build brand authority.

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Final Words

You see, there was nothing to be afraid of. Topical authority is not something scary, you just need to take a little time to do the proper research on the topic you want to be an expert on, and from there, you need to figure out what you’d like to touch on.

Once you get the hang of it, everything else should fall into place – improved traffic, better leads, and most important of all, higher rankings.

Interested in learning more about digital marketing? Don’t forget to visit our blog regularly for all the latest updates and insights.