How Do You Develop Authority?
You hear this word “Authority” thrown around these days. People use it for all kinds of reasons. In one sense, authority is a word that describes the depth of a person’s knowledge. On another level, it simply means the power to which an individual has been elevated over others. Either way, people respect it.
Authority can be abused. It can be acquired in less than honorable ways. But when legitimate, authority is a powerful force and when used for good it’s even more powerful. And that’s why you want to focus your efforts on becoming an authority in your niche.
A strongly search engine optimized website is good, but it will only take you so far. Authority, however, will take you to the ends of the earth and back again. And when you’ve achieved a certain level of authority, about the only thing that can take you down is your own stupidity, a big mistake, an ethical blunder, or a crime. Otherwise, if you are considered an authority by a large mass of people then you can ride a long way on the tallest waves just on that alone.
The problem with authority is that it takes a long time to build. It doesn’t happen overnight. Sure, you might have never heard of a certain individual then overnight they popped up on the radar screen, making it seem like they achieved instant success. But their authority has any real value, you can bet they spent years developing it. And you will too. But it’s well worth it.
Brian Clark wrote a free e-book titled Authority Rules. It’s a darn good read. If you don’t know who Brian Clark is then you are probably new to blogging and possibly even Internet marketing. Or you may just not be paying attention. But he’s one of the most respected authorities on blogging and authority so he’s someone you should listen to. It will tell you the 10 things you should do to develop authority in your niche and you don’t even have to pay for it.
10 Responses to “How Do You Develop Authority?”
SEO Journal is Written by
Brick Marketing Founder,
Nick Stamoulis:
Nick Stamoulis - SEO Bio.
Tel. - 877-295-0620
nick@brickmarketing.com
Connect with Nick Stamoulis
Brick Marketing - SEO Company
I downloaded Brian’s eBook too. Absolutely agree with both of you. My mantra is ‘trust’, which is closely related. Earn trusted advisor status with your ‘tribe’ and they will take your advice. It does take time, though… and it has to be authentic.
Hi Bob – Thanks for the comment, you are correct, building authority takes time and needs to be authentic…
Bless you Nick. This is a great post for me to start the day with. I have been slowly building an authority site for 2 years. Things are finally starting to snowball.
I know you are buddies with Michael and Sylvie Fortin. I watched a HILARIOUS video on Michael’s blog the other day Sylvie had made about fake authorities. It was a little animated video with computer generated voices. The male character had been to an internet marketing seminar where they told him he would make millions if he hired somebody in India to write about a subject neither knew nothing about! The female co-worker told him he was bonkers. Sorry, I just gave away the ending.
It is amazing how many fake authorities are out there. I worked in the TV news biz for about 25 years. As the PR industry grew and satellites came along, fake experts proliferated. Put a guy in a white lab coat, throw a stethoscope around his shoulder and give him a script that says whatever toxic, worthless crap you are selling is healthy. There you go! It’s called a video press release and has as much real credibility as Elmer Gantry.
Geez, there I go being too cynical again!
Hi Lorranie – Great background story! It is simply amazing to me how many companies and websites still can not grasp the idea of building trust and a successful long term reputation building strategy…Thanks for the comment on this one!
A great book called “Toxic Sludge is Good for You” is my favorite on the subject and explains totally what I am talking about. PR driven news cycles basically. Corporate sponsored news releases that cleverly disguise advertising as news using experts that are bought off or bribed in some way if necessary. This stuff ends up broadcast as news with no mention of corporate ties. Drove me nuts. Pollution of journalism.
I have a quick question for you if you do not mid please sir.
I have been working on a website for a local surgeon. He had an existing website but it was not performing well st all. The domain was his name, there was no on-page optimization. Very little real content. No links coming into the site except from yellow pages and doctor directories.
So we got a new, keyword rich domain name, gave him lots of on site optimization, expanded his content greatly both with text and video. Sent out ten articles via ezine and a few automatic directory submissions. Built him 3 hub pages and two squidoo lenses, a facebook page and a You Tube channel with original videos. We sent a PR web press release.
The new website is still no where to be found for any search terms. I know it takes a while and I suspect if I just let it sit in a month or two it would rise, but unfortunately for moi the good doctor is not real fond of the do-nothing-else-but-wait plan.
The new domain name has been active for about 2 months and the articles and hub pages, etc. are not but a couple of weeks old. How long do we need to wait for results and what is the best way to boost this sucker given what I have already done?
Thanks for your advice sir.
Lorraine Grula
Lorraine,
Kudos to the good doctor for not being a do-nothing-else-but-wait fan. What you should be doing right now is more of what you’ve already done. Send out more articles, build more Squidoo lenses and HubPages, build a few minisites, start a blog, do more video marketing … in essence, you should be marketing his website like there’s nothing else to do. The key to ranking well and staying there is to stay active and aggressive in building links and content. Why would you stop?
Hi Lorraine,
Sure, I am happy to help you with this. First thing I would start with is getting this website verified with Google webmaster tools so you can see what is going on. Then, how new is the domain? If it is truly new, then it very well may just be a sit and wait game, but in the mean time I would recommend try to build highly relevant links to the client’s site (blog comments, local profiles, industry association profiles, etc.) to help build up the trust…
I hope this helps and good luck!
Nick
Hi Allen,
Very true and great advice! It does take a good amount of marketing and activity to achieve and keep excellent rankings! Thanks for the comment
Hi Nick. Thanks so much for the advice. It will certainly help to analyze it with the web master tools.
You also told me about some other software that did a great job of analyzing the site. I can not remember the name of it though.
Something basic like “look at my site.” What was it again, please?
Allen, I am not planning on stopping, did not mean to give that impression. My point was that I think the site will benefit greatly from time, even if nothing else IS done. Seems like some of it hasn’t yet sunk in to the engines so has not yet had time to manifest. That’s all. Obviously more can always be done and I never expect to stop completely but I hope there will come a time when it will be a smaller daily effort.
Thanks
Lorraine
Hi Lorraine,
You are very welcome…I am not sure at all, the only tool I really use is Google Webmaster tools…
Thanks!
Nick