Authority Site Strategies

by dgarlock

Posted: 14 years ago 17 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

After a protracted development period (learning Drupal, styling/theming), my authority site BoomerTimes.com is finally live. I know what many of you are thinking, "another baby boomer site", but hey, it's still a niche, as large and crowded as it may be. Simply put, my plan is not to dominate the niche, but to leverage it. Baby boomers have some unique needs and interests, and the resources to pursue them. So, I've built this "authority site" with six major categories and 22 sub-categories, to serve as sub-niches or channels to aggregate activity and interest. Virtually all of human activity could be categorized in at least one of these categories.

But right now I'm struggling and could use some help.

1. Theming:
As mentioned, the site is built on Drupal, with a heavily customized contributed theme. My approach was to build a news site with intuitive navigation that is friendly to the 50+ crowd. Any suggestions for layout, appearance, etc.?

2. Features:
The forum - not a single post - abandon it? The link directory - good or bad? News items in the right column - OK? Visitor access/registration - wouldn't it be nice to have a list of, oh, 100,000 baby boomers? I can only dream. If you notice anything broken, out of place, peculiar or just a bad idea, let me know!

3. Monetization:
My plan (subject to feedback) is to monetize the site primarily using affiliate marketing, with an emphasis on physical products and services in demand, e.g. Amazon. Some niches should be more receptive than others to digital products, such as "Entrepreneurs" and "Health & Fitness" categories, where Clickbank offerings could succeed. I am also planning to deploy Adsense, sparingly, but with few expectations until the site gains some traction. Finally, at some point I may develop one or more products of my own, most likely digital. My thought is to find quality performing affiliate offerings and then (somehow) drive traffic to their respective category niches where their ads would appear. Does this make sense?

4. Content:
As an authority site, I think frequent authoritative articles are needed to give the site "cred". I don't have the inspiration, patience, time, confidence or "authority" to write articles myself, and at this stage of the project I can't really afford to outsource. Most of the articles on the site now are courtesy of EzineArticles, where I have kept them intact according to their terms of use, but changed the page title and added an introductory sub-heading. This was done just to get the site live without complete embarrassment. I have 100+ PLR articles specific to boomers and another 200+ on travel, but it all needs to be re-written and I'm unsure of the value. I'll have a little more confidence when I start producing keyword-rich content to drive the affiliate offerings. Any thoughts or ideas here?

5. SEO:
I think that SEO is 10% on-site and 90% off-site. I would give the site a grade of "B" inside the walls, but need to get it ranked with backlinks. I've subscribed to backlink packages from Angela, Paul and Joe Finn and plan to implement them soon. I've trademarked the logo/domain name, for what ever that may be worth. I've also set up a Facebook fan page but haven't done anything with it. What am I missing?

6. ROI:
I'm building this site for the long haul, but I'm running into a cash crunch and would like to see some quick returns, say $20. to $50. a day, real soon now. Ultimately, if I can get this site to generate a consistent $100. a day, I could spend every waking moment on it. Is this a realistic expectation?

I know there are probably thousands of baby boomer sites out there, but I believe this site has real potential if I leverage all that I've learned here on the Warrior Forum - many of you here are like family and I appreciate any feedback you can provide! Oh, and if you have any thoughts on collaboration or joint ventures, send me an IM!

Sincere regards, Dave

#authority #boomers #drupal #site #strategies

mmurtha 14 years ago

Dave,

If it were me, I'd remove your links from your post before some of us report the thread as self promotional.

Your post may be inocent but it doesn't look like it from this end.
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- dgarlock 14 years ago
  
  Thanks for the heads-up Mary - I'm kinda new on the forum rules - links removed and the site's URL is now in my sig
  
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Matt Bard

14 years ago

Originally Posted by dgarlock

...I don't have the inspiration, patience, time, confidence or "authority" to write articles myself, and at this stage of the project I can't really afford to outsource.

Dave, I will get back to the quote above in a minute but please read the following first.

I would not try and deal with a forum and anything else right now if you don't have the time to write content.

An authority site takes time to develop, as you are finding out. Yes you will have to build backlinks to support your SEO efforts however, at this time, that is not the biggest thing to think about right now. Content is.

One of the things that separates "authority" sites from others is the high quality content AND the "Law of Reciprocation".

Unlike other blogs and sites that rely on one way backlinks and very little outbound links, the true authority site has a very good working relationship with other authority sites within your niche.

To give your visitors the best information you must not be afraid to link out to other sites that will either support your information by adding to it or give related information that you are not fully covering.

This is adding value to your visitors overall experience (which is what Google is ultimately trying to achieve in their search results).

Now to get those other sites to give links back to you means that you need to add value to their site in some way.

The best way to add value to their site is to find an area in your niche that is not being given as much depth in content and fill that area.

As a result, the others will start to send their links to you too.

So back to the quote above. There is no way around the fact that you MUST provide high quality content and you must network with the other authority sites within your niche.

If you continue to post articles from directories, you are NOT going to be viewed with having any type of quality or originality. Which will prevent the others from taking you seriously and wanting to work with you.

You have already stated that you can not invest the time or the money in having this content written for you.

You can approach the other authority sites in your niche and see if they would be willing to contribute guest posts on your blog in exchange for something that you CAN contribute to theirs. A type of j.v. or barter.

Your options are pretty limited.

You write high quality original content. You hire someone to write that content. Or you work with the others in your niche.

However, I would have to say that working with the others will require work on your part to show that you are sincere and genuinely want to do this the right way.

Remember that the others have been there a while and have seen just about everything come their way.

Personally, I would make the time to do the research and write the content. Or at the very least, do the research and hire out the writing.

But either way, to have an actual "authority site", you need to know the niche inside and out.

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dgarlock

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Matt M

I would not try and deal with a forum and anything else right now if you don't have the time to write content.

Just what I expected to hear - the forum has already been removed from the site...

Originally Posted by Matt M

To give your visitors the best information you must not be afraid to link out to other sites that will either support your information by adding to it or give related information that you are not fully covering.

This is adding value to your visitors overall experience (which is what Google is ultimately trying to achieve in their search results).

These were my thoughts with the Link Directory, featuring over 100 links to relevant sites in 15 different categories...

Originally Posted by Matt M

Now to get those other sites to give links back to you means that you need to add value to their site in some way.

The best way to add value to their site is to find an area in your niche that is not being given as much depth in content and fill that area.

As a result, the others will start to send their links to you too.

Yes, agreed - a strategy I've been thinking about when I start the backlinking efforts...

Originally Posted by Matt M

You can approach the other authority sites in your niche and see if they would be willing to contribute guest posts on your blog in exchange for something that you CAN contribute to theirs. A type of j.v. or barter.

Good food for thought Matt...

Thanks for the detailed analysis!

Dave

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E. Brian Rose 14 years ago

Originally Posted by dgarlock

These were my thoughts with the Link Directory, featuring over 100 links to relevant sites in 15 different categories...

Hi Dave,

I like the site and think that it has potential. The baby boomer demographic is the largest in the world, so don't sell its potential short by thinking that it is an overcrowded market. Keep the content fresh and useful and people will come.

As for your reply to Matt M about linking to other sites... I don't think that he meant links in directory form. What you should be doing is pointing people to worthy information and articles from within your own posts. There is no reason that you shouldn't write about useful resources that you find on the Internet. If you are pointing people in the right direction then they will continue coming back. That is how you become an authority!

I know that you bought our course on Google News from the WSO forum and I thank you for that. Once you use the Google News tactics that I sent to you and get included as a Google News publisher, you will see a huge spike in traffic. That will be a golden opportunity to provide good resources to your audience and become a true authority site.

Good luck!
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Founder of JVZoo. All around good guy :)
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- dgarlock 14 years ago
  
  Thanks for the encouragement Eric -
  Yes, about the linking to other sites - it's now starting to sink in, but this adds one more element to the overall project. I'm now starting to see why mini sites and blogs are so common.
  The Google News WSO is excellent and should be a key element for gaining traction.
  
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Emmanuel Betinis 14 years ago

Dave, I like the video on BoomerTimes | News, Information, Trends, Resources and Discussion for the Age of Aquarius - the Beatles song...funny...

P.S. Outsourcing rocks.
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DeonKrey 14 years ago

Outsourcing has been my thing since I longed to manage my time in the internet business scheme. And, so far it's been one of these greatest decisions that I've made after having my virtual staff in place that I'm paying for less than $300 per month working for me full time.

Also to contribute to the previous posts, here's Yaro Starak's view on dominating the market:

Dominate Your Market: How Self Contained Communities Create Permanent Barriers To Entry - Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

Cheers!
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dgarlock 14 years ago

Thanks DeonKrey - the Yaro Starak link had some good points...
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arshu123 14 years ago

Authority building you need loads of patience my friend, they can only win, if they have patience and consistency
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Ken Leatherman 14 years ago

Dave,

One of the things you may want to be careful about is to make sure you don't violate EzineArticles TOS. And I'm referring to making changes to the article you capture.

I think your introduction idea is a good one, but make sure each intro is meaningful and useful to the reader.

Eric and Matt both mentioned having outgoing links to other useful sites. This will help the SE know you are a source for good content, which of course leads to better page rank and hopefully lends to better page location on the search engines.

One thing I would suggest is make the link for signing up a little larger and make it stand out. You may also want to tell those that sign up a little something about what they will get when they sign up. Also perhaps reward them with a free report about an issue that is important to baby boomers. This may help your sign ups significantly.

I congratulate you on getting the site up. And others could do well to follow your example of taking action.

Ken Leatherman
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- dgarlock 14 years ago
  
  Thanks Ken -
  
  I've thought about using a graphic to promote registration, in fact I had one in place, but later decided to use that real estate for getting content contributors.
  Right now content is my biggest challenge...
  
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Sean Ski 14 years ago

The thing about authority sites is... they have to be something special, if they're just your run of the mill website with generic info on it, a couple of backlinks that anyone could get and some forum then its not an authority site...

First, the seo is just going to take time... Forums are difficult to get going unless you have some sort of cool angle, and websites build their brand by being unique and having personality.
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- dgarlock 14 years ago
  
  Thanks Sean -
  Yes, maybe my site isn't so much an "authority site", rather, a news site, the more I think about it...
  And, I removed the forum, thinking it's a distraction. Besides, my immediate need is for content - registered users will arrive over time.
  
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  DonnaLeona 14 years ago
  
  Your site looks nice. Have you seen boomercafe.com?
  
  Maybe you can get some ideas from them.
  
  Make it a goal to write one article daily for your blog. Use rewrite versions for article directories. You must set daily minimum goals for yourself.
  
  Get a system down and always link out to helpful sites.
  
  Google hates sites that use articles from directories instead of unique, quality content.
  
  If this were easy everyone would just quit their jobs and do it. It takes work and lots of it.
  
  You have a great start on a good boomer website.
  
  Good Luck,
  Donna
  
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  dgarlock 14 years ago
  
  Thanks Donna,
  Yes, I've seen Boomercafe - there's a link to them in my link directory, along with more than 100 other baby boomer sites.
  My strategy is not to dominate the boomer niche, but to leverage it. What I mean by this is to develop the site as a news and information site, monetized with affiliate ads that pull baby boomers. For example, a baby boomer may be interested in a particular affiliate offering, driven by an article, for example, that may not specifically target boomers, but when they arrive at BoomerTimes they should feel at home. Does that make sense?
  
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dwatrous 14 years ago

I know that you mentioned that it may be more of a news site than an authority website. I think that might be right.

I've always thought that an "authority" leaned on the authority of the original content it published. If it's just reposted content or the content isn't very good then it's not an authority. The Wall Street Journal is an authority because of the quality and timeliness of the content. If the content was crap it wouldn't enjoy a position of authority.

I know how hard it is to write regularly and that confidence can be low in the beginning, but I highly recommend just practicing and getting some of your own content out there if you really want SE rankings and authority.

The site theme looks good. I think it has a good look for a news site.
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