Have you ever seen an undefeated champion fighter enter the ring? Sure, there's a lot of swagger and publicity stunting that goes on before the fight - but after the fighters enter the ring and the bell sounds, you can tell who means business. The champion has an undeniable presence, one which exudes authority and sends their opponents into cautious side-steps and defensive maneuvers. It's a powerful thing.
There's not a business owner in the world that wouldn't want their business to exude that kind of confidence and presence online. The kind of presence that boldly shows the value and strengths of the company and its offerings while resounding with authority. But how do you achieve that level of authority?
Well for starters, you have to acknowledge that online authority is something you earn by meeting certain criteria determined by visitors to your site and search engines, and not something you can buy or assume will come without effort. This means that even if your site is designed with a great strategy, you may still be missing the mark when it comes to generating authority.
There are three key areas where you need to focus your efforts to ensure you establish your business as an authority and thought leader online.
Get Your Online Authority in Fighting Shape with These 3 Steps
Get Social
Social media is the perfect platform for you to get vocal and showcase your expertise while earning trust and respect from your target audience. It's also crucial when it comes to getting your content out there and exposing it to a wider audience.
You can do this by:
- Ensuring your content is on point. You could spend 24/7 trying to gain social authority, but if you're sharing sub-par content, your efforts are going to fall flat.
- Connect to some industry influencers. By aligning yourself with influencers in your sector, you gain immediate credibility and an exposure boost to their large social media following. By maintaining contact with these influencers, you foster long-term relationships as well, which helps your social media reach.
- Pick your platform with care. Depending on the people you're hoping to reach through social media, you'll have to tailor your choice of platforms accordingly. Ask yourself which social media platforms are most used by your target audience - these are the ones you need to be present on. Also, remember that it's a good idea to familiarise yourself with the best practices for each network you're active on to maximise your effect.
- Be consistent in your efforts. Establishing your social authority means being consistent when it comes to posting and interacting across platforms. The easiest way to do so is to develop a comprehensive social media schedule and assign a team member to monitor it.
Let Your Content Speak Volumes
Your content is a valuable tool when it comes to building online authority. It needs to be trustworthy to succeed in gaining the respect of your target audience. There are some considerations you should take when creating content. These include:
- Is it original? Google is highly adept at demoting non-original, bland content from its rankings, so your content needs to clearly portray unique and individual ideas and points of view to be successful.
- Is it well-researched and sourced? For your content to be considered trustworthy, you need to provide credible sources that can confirm your facts and links to sources of reliable data.
- Is it in-depth and credible? Contrary to popular belief, shorter isn't always better regarding content creation. In-depth, well-researched content goes a long way towards helping establish authority - and while not every piece you create needs to be super long, you should have a strong percentage of content that covers rich detailed topics.
Amp Up Your Linking Strategy
Your linking strategy makes a big difference when it comes to boosting your authority online. Sites will often link to other sites of equal credibility, and search engines use links to determine the popularity, trustworthiness and authority of a page or website.
You can use your links to enhance your authority by ensuring use build links that are:
- Helpful. Choose to link to sites that add value to your content by way of additional helpful information.
- Natural. When creating links, keep them natural. This means allowing them to arise from great quality content, instead of forcing them in where there isn't any natural connection.
- High-quality. Choose your links wisely so that you've only got links of the highest quality, whether sourced from industry thought leaders, social media and media sources.
So know that you know how to start building your authority online, why not get started? Sit down and examine your current strategies and spot places where you can start optimising your attempts to garner authority, and become an industry thought leader.