If you want to become an authority, you can’t just randomly churn out content. There is a lot of competition, but you know you got it within you. You think that you can add a unique voice to that landscape, and come up with your own creative insights.
You’ll have to be able to compete with the best. Do these things, and you’ll be well on your way to become an authority in your niche:
Regularly Link To Authoritative Sites
When you tell the stuck in 2003 crappy SEO’s this, they will tell you, slightly panicking:
“DONT DO IT. All your ‘link juice’ will go to those sites, better try to get those links. Better to build some directory links. And make sure you no-follow their links!”
Don’t listen to that. Link to these resources. Your readers will love you for it – and so will Google.
Just think about it:
Google is trying to figure out what your website is about, right? Incoming links are a great way to see how much authority your site has, but outgoing links helps Google determine what your page is about.
If you consistently link to valuable resources on subjects within your niche – Google will pick up on that.
Pillar Posts
A great example of these are pillar posts. These are posts with resources on a particular subject your readers would like to know more about. You can be insanely helpful by curating content.
This is a fairly recent Pillar Post that has been very valuable for me:
The Ultimate List of Traffic & Content Promotion Tips from the Experts
The lovely thing with this type of post is, your reader will come back again and again!
So if you already read plenty of blogs, or know where to get valuable resources – Create a pillar post, and thank me later ;-p
Oh, and here are some blogs you should read:
BoostBlogTraffic
Fizzle
Socialtriggers
Wordstream
Optimize Every Title and Meta Description
I shouldn’t have to say this, but oh man..I see this one too often.
Don’t you hate it when you search for results in Google and they look like this?
If you are, then you are probably looking at this stuff like i do. I admit i mess up sometimes too, they are easy to forget. (i challenge you to find one :p )
But come on! This is their HOME page. This is their welcome sign.
I looked at their website. This is what they do:
Pretty simple right?
Basically what they do, is send you notifications on books that you might want to read based on the book you give in. The links to these books are amazon $$affiliate$$ links.
Pretty sneaky, and i was very surprised that they rank on #10 on the phrase “new book”. That much said about Google’s amazing algorithm (sorry Matt, please don’t penalize me 
But anyway, let’s say we are this “kind of evil” affiliate site, and we want to boost our CTR (click through ratio) to our website.
How could we translate that to a fantastic title & description?
It goes something like this:
Title:
Waiting for a new book? Get notified! – Tracknewbook
Meta Description:
Are you waiting for that new book by your favorite author? You can track it for free with Track New Book. Sign up today and get notified!
This summarized the service before they even clicked the page, and has a call-to-action for anyone interested in it. It’s not that hard.
Got it?
Create Valuable Content Regularly
Let’s face a cold fact: until you start creating content that will genuinely help your readers, nobody is going to see you as an authority. And even when you start, it’s not like people will massively read your blog instantly.
The good thing is, you probably ARE an authority in the business you are in. I am an online marketeer and entrepeneur, so i know ‘a thing or two’ about these subjects. So what to do?
Find out what your readers want to know – and give it to them. Shock them with your usefulness.
If you will keep on doing this, eventually you will start to build an audience for your blog.
These are people who love reading your content, because it makes them feel smart. They always pick something up from your posts. Or your posts are a wake up call for them. It might even expand their thinking on certain subjects.
The point is simply to spend less time on Twitter, Facebook or whatever you are doing and to start to Write Epic Shit. Yes, you will remain in a dark and lonely corner of the internet. At least for a while, maybe 6 months, maybe 2 years.
But i guarantee you, if you will keep at it – it will pay off eventually. You have within you the power to help thousands, maybe even millions of people. Don’t think it ain’t so.
Will you work through it even in the lonely times without comments and shares?
Use Buzzsumo To See What Kind Of Content Works
You can find out what kind of content gets shares to get a good indication of authoritative content.
This will give you an idea of what works. It’s also a great way to brainstorm new content ideas. If you want to get really crazy, you could even combine 2 ideas. For example: Blogging + Journalism. How could we combine that into an interesting blog post?
- “What Journalists Can Teach Us About Blogging”
- “Are You A Blogger? This Is Why You Should Listen To Journalists”
- “Common Blogging Mistakes That Any Journalist Would Avoid”
When i searched for journalists in Buzzsumo, these 2 posts got a lot of shares. Why?
- They make bold statements
- They use a well known person, in this case President Obama.
(This is a great way to gain attention from your readers)
Of course, these are only some of the reasons. Because as you can see, most shares come directly from Facebook. This could mean that they did a paid advertisement on Facebook.
And last but not least, make sure the headline doesn’t disappoint.
If someone reads your blog because they we’re pulled in by a magnetic headline, and the actual content turned out to be a large pile-of-crap, they’re not coming back.
Their CRAP radar will go on full blast when they see another one of your rotten-apple headlines.
This video will explain why: Clickbait Headlines Work For Now, But They’re Going To Die
Conclusion
These are merely some of the tactics i could teach you. I hope you got value out of this post. Do you want more? Let me know if you want a part II!
Just reply below with something like “Yes, give me a part II, GIMME GIMME!” or something more subtle so i will know that you liked reading this.
Sharing this article will also let me know that you got something out of this, and is highly appreciated!