Building authority sites... where to begin?

yukon Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by VegasGreg

Materials needed:

--Domain name
--Hosting
--Site format (Wordpress or html or whatever)
--Content
--More content
--Keep adding content

OP, everything you need for an authority site is in this list!
- Thanks
- 2 replies
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- Mike Francis 13 years ago
  
  I just took a quick look at the 20-minute niche blog WSO and as far as I can tell it's just a WordPress theme with some SEO plug-ins and some other customizations. There's no reason you couldn't start with that and just add more and more content over time.
  
  Thanks
  
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- Henry White 13 years ago
  
  Choose your niche carefully - it's something that you're going to have to invest a LOT of time in to pacify the SE and your human audience. So it had better be something you're passionate about or you're going to be absolutely miserable PDQ.
  
  Fortunately, we have an advantage most do not - our audience is equally as passionate about this topic as we are: getting them to contribute ideas even quality content is a cakewalk!
  
  FWIW, I planned mine along the lines of a short dead-tree book, and developed the outline that made sense to me. The content virtually wrote itself. I simply keep adding a page or more each week - the SEs are happy, the traffic keeps rising, and slowly but surely I'm replacing affiliate links with my own products. Life couldn't get any sweeter than this!
  
  Thanks
  
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  fluffythewondercat 13 years ago
  
  I own two authority sites. One took several years to get to that point; the other made it in less than nine months. Using what I've learned so far, the new blog I installed today is on a six month timeline. We'll see if it makes it, but you've got to have goals to keep you going.
  
  It does take unflagging effort and updating your site frequently. Also links, internal and offsite.
  
  fLufF
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Mike Francis

13 years ago

I think the biggest difference is that in a niche site you focus on one or two keywords and restrict the content to that tiny little fraction of the overall topic while an authority site like you are talking about would have hundreds (maybe thousands) of pages to completely cover the topic from all different angles.

For example, a niche site on how to get rid of acne may have 5 pages targeting 5 keywords. That limits your content to those 5 keywords only. A larger, authority site might be on the topic of "how to get rid of acne" but target many more keywords and have many more pages. You could also go to the more broad niche of "skin care" or even "health & wellness".

If you want to become an authority in the eyes of Google and of your visitors the content needs to be good too. Generally better than what I see on many small niche sites. It should eventually create a community of loyal readers who regularly comment on the site. You shouldn't be afraid of linking out to larger authority sites.

Eventually your good content will attract natural backlinks as other sites link to your posts. Your hundreds of pages will attract visitors from many different keywords and you will have created a site of real value.

That's my take on the whole thing. I'm sure other people will have some ideas of their own.

Good luck with it!

Thanks
1 reply

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Vlad Romanov

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Francis

I think the biggest difference is that in a niche site you focus on one or two keywords and restrict the content to that tiny little fraction of the overall topic while an authority site like you are talking about would have hundreds (maybe thousands) of pages to completely cover the topic from all different angles.

For example, a niche site on how to get rid of acne may have 5 pages targeting 5 keywords. That limits your content to those 5 keywords only. A larger, authority site might be on the topic of "how to get rid of acne" but target many more keywords and have many more pages. You could also go to the more broad niche of "skin care" or even "health & wellness".

If you want to become an authority in the eyes of Google and of your visitors the content needs to be good too. Generally better than what I see on many small niche sites. It should eventually create a community of loyal readers who regularly comment on the site. You shouldn't be afraid of linking out to larger authority sites.

Eventually your good content will attract natural backlinks as other sites link to your posts. Your hundreds of pages will attract visitors from many different keywords and you will have created a site of real value.

That's my take on the whole thing. I'm sure other people will have some ideas of their own.

Good luck with it!

Thanks Mike, very good info.

And to clarify what I ment by my original question is what is needed to organize such content? Is there a special wordpress theme or plugin which would manage a nice navigation between pages? In other words for micro blogs there are premade templates (for example 20-minute niche blog), are there such things for creating nicely linked authority sites?

Also how would my keyword research go? Should I start with one large keyword and then write content which would be a little more broad as opposed to the main page?

Thank you guys again for all the input.

Thanks

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Website: http://vladromanov.com

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homerunhitter

13 years ago

checkout the searchreviews widget. You could make some bank

searchreviews (dot) com for more info

Thanks

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NiallR

13 years ago

Originally Posted by NastyDevil

Hi fellow warriors, I have many small niche websites and I have read numerous guides on how to design and maintain them. I was looking into building a multi-page authority site and would like to hear some opinions on what materials are good for such a project.

I am looking for any kinds of inputs from current owners or guides..

Thank you,
ND

Hi ND,

An authority site doesn't necessarily mean that you need to target the phrase acne for example and to be honest I probably wouldn't go down that route. Yes you CAN build an authority site on every aspect of acne but it's going to take a long time and/or ongoing investment in content.

I think people confuse authority sites with mega sites sometimes. What I mean by that is the word authority itself says everything you need to know - you will become the "voice" for that niche and be seen as an expert by people visiting your site.

So based on that I wouldn't go for something like acne but I'd drill down a bit more into things like cystic acne, adult acne or acne treatments. There are hundreds if not thousands of phrases in each of these authority niches that you can build pages on - and they're high paying Adsense niches too ;-)

On the basis of income my authority sites have always, always, always outperformed my niche sites in both Adsense and affiliate revenue plus a large site with great content and a solid natural linking pattern is pretty safe from Google updates - especially when your traffic is a mix of phrases with high search counts and the good old longtail stuff too

[ 1 ] Thanks

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itsallwhite

13 years ago

Remember though an authority site is not just a bigger site - its becoming an 'authority' in its niche.

This means you need to become seen as the 'go to' site in your niche for relevant information and answers - you'll get search engine traffic as well as direct traffic.

Essentially you are creating a 'brand' for your website - don't just think bigger...

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Building authority sites... where to begin?

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