Building topical authority for a specific topic in 5 steps

To rank high in Google's search results it is important to build topical authority. Topical authority is obtained when you are an expert in your field and are seen as such by Google.

However, the question is how to build topical authority. So in this blog we give you 5 tips to increase your topical authority that can help you improve your position in search results.

The power of a good content strategy for topical authority

Although the term "topical authority" is gaining popularity in the online marketing industry, Google remains vague about the specific parameters they use to make topical authority measurable. What is clear is that it involves a combination of quantitative and qualitative factors, such as the amount of blogs on a website and the reputation of an author. Therefore, to meet both types of conditions, it is important to pursue a rock-solid content strategy for building topical authority. However, what steps does this content strategy consist of? In five steps, we explain how you can build topical authority so that you will increasingly begin to meet Google's EEAT principle.

1.      The usefulness of keyword analysis for higher topical authority

As is true of any SEO strategy, you begin your strategy by conducting keyword research. After all, using the right keywords in a text puts you in touch with your target audience, who use those keywords to find information you provide on your website. To build topical authority, however, it's important that you don't just use generic short-tail keywords with the highest search volume in a blog. It is at least as important to incorporate long-tail keywords with lower search volume into your content, since you are trying to cater to a niche. You also want to rank higher than your competitors on keywords, so you will need to use keywords with a lot of competition. In short, conducting a comprehensive keyword analysis forms the basis of your content strategy, which requires the necessary knowledge and experience with different types of keywords.

2.      Topic clusters: grouping keywords together

The keyword analysis provides insight into the most important keywords that touch on the topic on which you want to be seen as an expert by Google. For now, however, this is a cloud of keywords, which you will have to group into topic clusters. A so-called cluster analysis. Which keywords are about the same subtopic and can therefore be used to create a specific blog or page about? This blog is a good example of this: this blog incorporates specific keywords that deal with topical authority as part of SEO. In a similar way you can also do this for your niche. Once you have identified what topic clusters exist for your topic, you can create a content calendar and start gathering information about the subtopic.

3.      The importance of link building for a strong information architecture

Have you written several pages on niche aspects, sub-questions or subtopics? Then it's time to link these pages or blogs together according to a logical information architecture. Previously, I wrote a blog about four website structures, which you can use to make your website clear for search engines and visitors to your website. This website structure is created by linking pages together with internal links. Here comes linkbuilding then also look around the corner. What topic clusters make up the cornerstone content of your website and how do subpages logically fall under these main pages or pillar pages? By adding internal links to your blogs or pages it becomes easier for visitors to navigate your website and search engines can read your website better. This then contributes to topical authority, as it allows you to demonstrate that you understand the ins and outs of a topic.

4.      Create an author page for high authority

In addition to writing pages for your website and creating a logical website structure, you can choose to write blogs. After all, blogs are a great way to elaborate on certain developments in your field or a background information of a service you offer. However, if you post a blog on your website without indicating who wrote the content, which is the case for pages on a website, for example, Google does not know who the information came from. This detracts from the reliability of the content and source, which is one of the pillars of the EAT principle that Google uses to rank search results. In other words, by not adding an author name to your content, you are making it difficult for yourself to build topical authority. Therefore, create an author page and add an author name to the content you write.

5.      Maintaining topical authority: how do you do it?

Although you can now build topical authority in four steps, this does not mean the end of your content strategy. In fact, the most important step is to maintain your topical authority on a specific topic. After all, just like any other SEO strategy, you will lose top position in the search results if competitors overtake you or improve their website according to the EAT principle. Topical authority can be maintained by regularly blogging about new trends in your field, expanding pillar pages or expanding your keyword research by identifying new topic clusters. The 5 steps in this blog are therefore an iterative process, with the goal of increasing and maintaining your topical authority on a specific topic.

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