SEO isn’t just about choosing the highest volume keywords that relate to your offerings and optimising for them. Yes, you want to target phrases that people are actually searching for on a regular basis, but there’s another important consideration to move the needle in Google. Topical authority.
What is Topical Authority?
Topical authority refers to the perceived expertise and credibility a website (or content creator) has within a specific subject area. This authority is established through a number of factors, including:
- Content Depth: Producing comprehensive, well-researched, and valuable content on a particular topic.
- Consistency: Regularly updating and adding new content related to the subject, showing ongoing engagement.
- Backlinks: Gaining links from reputable sources within the same niche, which signals to search engines that your content is trustworthy.
- User Engagement: High levels of interaction, such as comments, shares, and time spent on the page, indicate that users find the content valuable.
- Social Proof: Positive reviews, mentions in reputable media, and a strong social media presence can enhance perceived authority.
Building topical authority can improve search engine rankings and drive more organic traffic, as search engines prioritise content that demonstrates expertise and relevance.
Build Topical Authority Isn’t Done On Just One Page
It is very rare in 2024 that you will rank well for a competitive keyword by simply having a single page on it. The websites which now perform best in search are those with multiple pages around a keyword theme.
These multiple pages can be lower-level pages on the site, blog articles, or a combination of the two. Importantly, they should be unique in their own right, while still relating to the topic you are trying to rank well for. These pages should also contain high-quality valuable content, and link back to the main target page.
If you link to pages that aren’t thematically related, both internally and externally, you won’t benefit from the links, and may even hurt rankings.
Topical Authority isn’t just about creating pages for keywords with high search volumes. You might have every possible topic relating to your target theme included on your website, regardless of whether lots of people are searching for these. The crucial factor is all these high-quality related pages positions you/your site as an expert on the topic, highlighting your topical relevance to Google, and allowing you to rank for the important high-volume keywords on your target pages.
Our SEO company can help devise a suitable plan.
An Example of Suitable Topics
Let’s say you want to rank well for keywords relating to “web design”. Writing a couple of articles around web design will not likely be enough to compete in the SERPs.
It is worth setting up a range of sub-pages, on topics such as:
- responsive web design
- e-commerce web design
- web design for small business
- web design packages
- and more.
On top of this, creating lots of quality articles for your blog is also beneficial, such as:
- How to convert more website leads
- Color Psychology in Web Design: How to Choose the Right Palette
- Should I use AI to help write blog posts for my website?
- The Role of Typography in Web Design
- Digital Marketing for New Websites
- Common Web Design Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- What is the best website platform for SEO?
- Designing Effective Call-to-Action Buttons
- Why Website Maintenance is Crucial for Your Website
- How to Showcase Your Web Design Portfolio Effectively
- Website Digital Marketing Trends
The more high-quality, valuable pages relating to the theme of web design, each cross-linking where relevant and all linking back to the target page, the more chance your topic authority (and thus rankings) will increase.
Google’s Expectations for a Quality Page
Google is getting better at determining page quality, and has thousands of people regularly performing manual reviews of pages across the web, assigning them a page quality rating. So gone are the days where you can churn out dozens of pages on a topic with fluff or thin content.
Google takes the following 3 steps to determine a Page Quality rating:
Step 1: Determining the purpose of the page
Step 2: Assess if the purpose of the page is harmful, or the page has the potential to cause harm
Step 3: Determining the rating
The Page Quality rating is based on how well the page achieves its purpose on a scale from lowest to highest quality.
To summarise, determine the topic you want to focus on, then create multiple high-quality pieces of content around the broad subject. Use internal linking strategies between the articles and back to the target page to increase topical authority. This will not only show you’re an expert on a topic but will increase your rankings, traffic and leads.
Looking to implement these techniques for your brand and be seen as a leader in your niche? Book a free 15 minute strategy call.
