How To Build an Authority Website
Authority Websites are highly respected in Google and other Search Engines, and owning one makes your life easier. New content is quickly indexed and ranks with little work on your end. You get lots of traffic, you can reach out to thousands of visitors with a single post and you own a truly valuable asset. Authority Websites are powerful and long-lasting.
Even better: authority Websites can be sold for more monthly revenue than small, niche Websites. Buyers are more willing to spend money on authority Websites because they know that big, trusted Websites are going to remain profitable for a longer time than small, niche sites. Plus, authority Websites can tackle new markets with ease.
Hopefully I have you sold on authority Websites by now. If you like what you are hearing so far, you will be glad to know that you too can build an authority Website. You have to be patient and willing to work hard without pay, but creating an authority Website is worthwhile in the long run.
Planning for an Authority Website
Planning is important for authority Websites because they can cover a lot of ground. You need to plan where you will start and where you want to take the Website. Think about what you want the site to accomplish, how it will make money and what steps you need to take to get there. Write a list of content ideas and organize the navigation of your Website.
Next, you will need to pick a domain name. The cool thing about authority Websites is that the domain name does not have to be a perfect, exact match domain. Try to make a memorable brand with the domain and include at least one of your keywords in there, this can help with both Search Engine Optimization and also build authority. Another great tip is to purchase an older domain name that is already established and has a certain amount of authority. Go ahead and read How To Choose the Right Domain Name.
And finally, you have to mentally prepare yourself for a long road of hard work. The biggest disadvantage of building authority Websites is that they take longer to become profitable. Since they are not focused entirely on a specific niche, authority Websites take time to develop and become loved by the search engines.
Getting it Running
The fastest way to get your authority site up and running is to focus most of your content on one niche for now. You do not need to do everything all at once. Look for a profitable niche subject and write lots of content for that subject. After you get a little money coming in, you will find it easier to promote other products and expand into new markets.
For example, let´s say you have a new weight loss domain. You plan to eventually become the worldwide authority on all things related to weight loss. Your long term plan is to rank number one for “weight loss.” These are admirable goals, but it´s going to take you a very long time to get there. What you can do in the meantime is focus on less competitive keywords. Get the ball rolling, drum up some cash and get the Website moving as quickly as possible.
So instead of going after “weight loss” with 100% of your focus right off the bat, consider targeting easier keywords such as “weight loss for diabetic teens“ or whatever your research indicates is a good keyword. Write articles and build links for those keywords first. You can do the occasional general “weight loss” article and link in the meantime, but spend more effort on low-hanging fruit first.
Once you get the ball rolling, you will have an easier time ranking for more competitive keywords. After you establish yourself as the authority on overweight diabetic teens, you can move on to another niche subject and do the same thing there. Over time, you will find it easier and easier to dominate new niches and make money.
Keep expanding into new niches, dominating and then repeating. Add content and build links for your long term goal, but don´t spend every waking second on that long term goal. If you keep expanding, dominating and moving on to another niche, one day you will wake up and realize you have an authority Website. Congratulations.
Your Turn to Talk
Do you have any other suggestions on building an Authority Website? If so, please share your opinion in the comments section. Your opinion matters, unless it is a Spam.
Hi,
I have around 25 niche sites at the moment. Due to the recent google update, all of them have lost their rankings. And they were getting quite difficult to handle all by my self. So what I am trying to do is getting all my niche sites deindexed by google and once the content from these niche sites is deindexed by google, I’ll put that content on my authority site. The authority site I am planning to build will be a huge source of information. Currently it has 30 something articles and by the end of this year, I target to put up at least 1000 articles on it!
Do you have any suggestions for me?
Hi Anirudh,
Yea, it has become more difficult to juggle multiple niche websites lately. There are a couple of options:
1. Leave the content where it is and try to identify/fix the problems with the niche sites. Did you have bad incoming links? Did you have too many articles that cover the same topics? Lots of affiliate links? If so, get those links removed, update your content and ease off on the ads.
2. Move the content to your authority website. Before you do this, be sure that it’s not a problem with your content. Make sure it is high quality content. The last thing you want to do is put all your eggs in one basket and then have that main website get pummeled as well.
It’s really tough to tell you exactly what to do without looking at your website and pouring through the data. Even then, it is still difficult to figure what exactly Google wants from us lately.
Keep adding high quality content, expand where you get traffic (ie don’t rely on Google for all your traffic) and keep plugging away. I wish I could give you the one easy answer, but there is no simple easy answer.
Hey, thanks for your suggestions. Yes I think I should diversify my traffic source and shouldn’t solely depend on search engines. Twitter and Youtube have worked for me in the past but I’ll start spending more time on them. I have taken down all my niche sites and I have put all those domains up for sale on sedo.com as it is really a pain managing all those sites all by myself, you know logging into wordpress for each website, posting content, updating themes, plugins and stuff! And I am waiting for all the content of these websites to get deindexed (that should take about a month I guess), then I would review all the content, make changes to them and post them on my wanabe authority blog. 2-4 articles of 500 words each is what I post on my authority blog at the moment.
Could you tell me a good place where I could outsource my articles for cheap?
Good ideas,
Youtube is a great way to branch out. And as a side benefit, you’ll see SEO benefits for more search traffic (even though the goal is to diversify, I’ll still take any advantage I can get).
I don’t think there’s a good place to outsource articles for cheap anywhere. Good content costs money. Unless you’re really, really lucky, cheap content = low quality. There’s no way around that.
I still write everything on my authority websites myself. I’ve tried to outsource content before and the authors just never seem to “get” what I want. And even if their content is readable, it’s usually written in a completely different voice and misses the points I wanted to make.
There are a few great writers out there, but they are expensive. You either write it by hand or spend good money. There’s no easy away around it unfortunately.