seo-rankings

How Building Topical Authority Helps Boost Your Google SEO Rankings

When it comes to SEO strategy, there are a lot of aspects to consider. You can’t expect Google to give you good rankings without putting in the work. And the reality is that simply focusing on your website’s content isn’t enough. To get the best results possible, you need to think about much more than just putting out content – you also have to think about how topical authority can help you achieve better rankings. This article will discuss how building your topical authority helps boost your Google search rankings 

What is Topical Authority? 

Topical authority is a measure of how well your website is performing on a particular topic. It’s also a way to examine your performance compared to your competitors and the quality of your content. While domain authority and page authority are equally as important, topical authority helps boost your overall ranking by showing you know what you’re talking about in your industry. The more high-quality, informative content you produce, the more people will trust your brand as an authoritative voice and resource on the specific subject matter. 

How Does Topical Authority Differ from Domain Authority? 

Domain Authority measures how well a website is trusted by Google. This measurement is on a scale of 0-100, with 100 representing the most trustworthy websites. 

Google uses this score to determine how well your website will perform in search results and whether they can trust it as an authoritative source of information. 

Topical authority differs from domain authority as it measures how much trust you have earned over time in a specific topic. Topical authority is determined by two main factors: 

  • The number of times your content has been linked to or shared across the web (link equity)
  • The relevance of those links that link back to you (content quality)

How Topical Authority Can Boost Your Domain Authority  

To help explain the benefits of building topical authority, let’s look at how you can use this tactic to help boost your domain authority. 

The first step is finding a topic that has enough demand. This means that people are looking for information on this topic and are willing to pay for it. 

Once you’ve found a topic with high demand, go through competitors’ websites using SEO tactics and learn what they do well. If they rank high in Google search results, determine why. Take note of what these sites are doing because you’ll want to emulate them to rank highly and outrank them in Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). 

Once you’ve learned the SEO basics and understand what it takes to rank highly in search engines, you can begin building topical authority. This means you’ll want to create valuable content for your audience. If they find your content interesting and useful, they’ll likely share it with their friends and family, leading to more traffic for your website. The more people who visit, the higher your domain authority will be! 

Benefits of Building Topical Authority 

Building topical authority is essential for many reasons, and here are some of the biggest: 

  • Increased traffic: the more you know about your topic, and the more frequently you publish articles on it, the better off you’ll be in terms of overall traffic. Staying up to date with trends in news coverage will help ensure that any reader coming to your site is likely to discover something new or exciting for them (and then share it with their friends).
  • Improved rankings: as mentioned above, Google wants its users to find what they’re looking for as quickly as possible. If someone searches “how do I build topical authority,” their goal will be served best if they get results from sites with great information rather than sites that don’t offer much value beyond self-promotion or spammy links.
  • More links back into your site(s): link building is still one of the most effective ways to increase organic search rankings across all industries. Building trust among key influencers within an industry can hugely impact how well your content performs over time without requiring any additional effort on your part once it’s published!

How to Build Topical Authority 

  1. Niche Down 

To build topical authority, you’ll first need to understand your niche. What are the specific issues that your audience is facing? What problems do they have that you can help solve? How will you offer them something unique or different from what is currently available in the marketplace? 

  1. Keyword Research 

Keyword research is essential for building topical authority. Keywords are what users type into search engines to find the content you have written. Understanding which keywords to target and how to implement them within your content is vital for optimization and ranking purposes.  

  1. Develop a Content Strategy

After you’ve determined what your audience wants to know and which keywords they’ll likely use, you need to develop a compelling content strategy aligned with your brand. A content strategy will help you determine what types of content to create, which media will be most effective, how to promote your content, and how to track its performance. 

  1. Create Pillar Pages

Pillar content represents the primary topic content writers and SEO experts are trying to rank for by producing more specific pieces of cluster content. A pillar page is a foundation on which topic clusters are built, covering all aspects of the topic on a single page. Pillar pages broadly cover a core topic and are longer than typical blog posts because they address all aspects of the specific topic. However, they aren’t as detailed, leaving room for more in-depth information to be explored in the related cluster content. 

  1. Build Topic Clusters 

Cluster content expands on the topic covered in the pillar page, addressing specific keywords related to the in-depth topic. Apart from helping your site gain topical authority and boost rankings, pillar pages and content are efficient ways to organize multiple pieces intuitively.  

For example, you might write a pillar page about Google SEO tactics (broad topic) and pieces of cluster content about building topical authority, blogging, or effective keyword strategies. 

  1. Use Internal Links Wisely 

The best way to make your content easier to navigate is through internal links. These are the links you see on a page leading you back or forward and around your site. 

  • Linking back and forth within a post or article will help readers find related information they may be interested in while reading—and it shows them you’re here to help.
  • Linking across different articles on your site gives visitors an easy way to browse all the content you have available (which can keep them from leaving). Be sure not to overdo it—you don’t want to overwhelm your readers!

Agency Partner Interactive 

Building topical authority is one of the most effective ways to improve your Google SEO rankings. You can increase traffic, gain new customers, drive engagement, and generate conversions by establishing your business as an expert in your field. SEO is an ever-evolving process that can be overwhelming without the right partner. That’s where we come in. Agency Partner’s award-winning SEO experts can drive consistent organic traffic to your site and optimize your content to get you to the top of the SERPs and keep you there. The synergy between our SEO and Content Marketing teams enables us to help brands of all sizes and industries gain authority and dominate the market. Ready to take the leap into exponential growth? Get in touch with a digital marketing specialist at Agency Partner today! 

local_seo_for_small_businesses

A Complete Guide to Local SEO for Small Businesses

Expert Tips on Local SEO For Small Business

Local search is extremely important for small businesses. In fact, 80% of consumers utilize local search to find local businesses. This means if your business if your website isn’t optimized for local search, you could be missing out on 4 out of 5 of your potential customers.

Luckily, optimizing your business for local search is a straightforward process. Taking the necessary steps to ensure that your website is found for corresponding local searches will make sure that your business flourishes.

After all, 88% of all local searches result in the web user calling or visiting the business within 24 hours. If you want to learn more about how you want to build a strong foundation for your business, read this guide to achieve more online visibility from local searches. 

Create a Google My Business Listing

It’s surprisingly shocking that only 44% of small businesses have claimed their Google My Business (GMB) listing.

Considering that an average consumer will check local map listings to find a business near them, it would seem foolish to ignore setting up a listing.

That is how things currently are, but it doesn’t mean you have to neglect this very important process.

As you can see, the listing on the right of the image has all of the information that’s valuable to a potential customer.

People can use these listings to visit a website, receive directions, look at online reviews, and make a phone call. 

Creating a GMB listing is simple. Follow these steps to get the job done properly.

  1. Create a Google account or log in.
  2. Click here to visit Google My Business. 
  3. Fill out the required fields, such as your phone number, address, etc.
  4. Verify the information.
  5. Claim your listing and submit.

This is the most basic step in optimizing your business for local search. Your GMB listing is the gateway where unrefined prospects become loyal customers.

Leverage Effective Internal Linking Strategies

Backlinks are the crux of every internet marketing strategy. Though, internal links are just as important to boost your SEO ranking. Generally speaking, internal links are essential for the following reasons:

  • They support efficient website navigation
  • Streamlines website hierarchy and information architecture
  • Reinforces ranking power and page authority throughout your website

If you ever want to see a prime example of an effective internal linking strategy, visit a Wikipedia page. It’s not a coincidence that Wikipedia pages often rank highly in search engines.

They are highly-resourceful and have countless internal links to aid your comprehension and navigate to other useful pages. This increases the time you spent on Wikipedia, which lets search engines know that the site is valuable.

To the same effect, you should utilize sound internal link strategies to help your site rank sufficiently for local searches. 

Optimize all Metadata

Metadata is information that describes other data. This includes URLs, title tags, meta descriptions, and all the like. 
 metadata
You see metadata every time you conduct any type of search. Just take a look at this standard search.
dentist

 

Do you see the headers indicating what each web page is about? 

This is metadata. 

Do you also see the descriptions below the headers? 

This is also metadata. 

It’s important to optimize the metadata of your entire website architecture to show up for local searches. The best way to do this is by adding high-volume keywords in the URL, title, header, meta description, and body. 

This will make sure that your website is found by consumers using the same high-volume keywords you’re including in your site’s metadata.

Add Location Pages to Your Website

If your business operates in multiple locations, you should reflect this on your website. The only way is to create separate location pages for each city or region you do business in. 

For example, if you run a restaurant in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, you need to create different pages for both.

Keep in mind that you can’t replicate the same city pages and change the city names.

This is frankly lazy and Google won’t rank them. Instead, put forth the time and effort to create custom location pages that provide information unique to the city the page is mentioning.

Develop Stellar Local Content

If you want to attract local leads, then you’ll need to develop a consistent local content strategy. Ranking your local content isn’t as difficult due to the low amount of competition compared to worldwide search results.

Therefore, all you need is a great content writer and marketing team on your side to craft stellar local content. For example, if you run a law firm, you can write a post about how readers can select the best firm in your city.

Finally, you can add tons of local keywords. This will help your content rank high for local searches and provide a lot of value to your audience – that’s effectively killing two birds with one stone.

Make Sure Your Website is Mobile-Friendly

More than half of all online searches happen on a mobile device. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile devices, then you could be running potential customers off before they can even convert.

A website doesn’t appear the same way on a computer as it does on a tablet. Therefore, you will have to ensure that your website has a fast and convenient mobile version.

The important thing to realize here is that your desktop version should still provide the same features as your mobile version. It can be frustrating to be forced to use a computer just because the mobile version of a website stripped certain essential features.

Improve Your Local SEO Today!

Local SEO is vital for the online presence of any small business. Since people mainly conduct business online, building a strong foundation on the internet isn’t an optional task.

If you need help in jumpstarting the local SEO strategy of your business, give us a call at (214) 295-5845 to learn more about how we can help you today.

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “A Complete Guide to Local SEO for Small Businessesinstead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!

 

 

how_to_optimize_your_website_for_voice_search

How To Optimize Your Website for Voice Search

Tips From Search Engine Optimization Experts

Voice Search is one of the most growing trends of the past few years. If you don’t believe that, here are a few core voice search statistics you should be made aware of.

  • Smart speaker sales have grown tremendously across the globe and will reportedly surpass $30 by the year 2024, according to Global Market Insights
  • 55% percent of households are expected to own a smart speaker by 2020, according to OC&C Strategy Consultants.
  • 71% of smart speaker owners predict they’ll continue conducting voice searches in the future, according to PwC

That’s not all. Here’s an interesting infographic from Dialogtech that displays how smart speaker owners will use their devices in the future. 

How Often You Will Use Voice Devices in the Future
Question: How Often You Will Use Voice Devices in the Future

As you can see, voice search is a massively growing trend. With that said, here’s how you can optimize your website for voice search.

Perform Long-Tail Keyword Research

If you’re using current technology, chances are that you’ve performed numerous voice searches. For example, if you’re on your way to a new job, you’ve likely asked Google to say, “Google, where are the nearest coffee shops near me?”

If you haven’t, then you’ve probably asked Siri, “what’s the weather looking like outside?” Regardless of the questions you’ve asked using a voice search, there is one thing in common with all of the search terms you’re using.

Almost all of the search terms you’ll use in voice search are long-tail keywords. Integrating long-tail keywords into your SEO Srategy can work wonders if you’re trying to generate qualified leads via a smart speaker.

It’s as simple as using your keyword research tools to find popular long-tail keywords and generating vivid variations of each one you find. 

Use Local Keywords

Like Long-tail Keywords, utilizing local keywords is also important for Optimizing your Website for voice search. People commonly use smart speakers to find local businesses. Therefore, don’t count on Local SEO to go out of style now.

You’ll still need to perform a lot of research on local keywords in your industry and invent creative ways of integrating these search terms in your site. For example, you can produce a FAQ page (we’ll get to this later) to post all of your local keywords and begin accumulating SEO real estate. 

Provide Immediate Results

When people use smart speakers, they expect immediate results. So, what does this mean? If you are trying to find a nearby donut shop on a smart speaker, would you really feel comfortable visiting a shop if your speaker didn’t give you any information on star reviews or even a phone number?

With that said, make sure your Google My Business (GMB) profile is up-to-date and carries all of your business info. Your smart speaker will typically derive all of its information from your GMB profile.

Still, this isn’t all. You’ll also need to make sure you have a fast website that’s extremely informative.

Optimize for the Buyer’s Journey

Regardless of the apparatus people use to conduct a search, optimizing your website for the buyer’s journey is a critical aspect of the sales and marketing process. For example, let’s say that you want to purchase a smart speaker. 

This is what a typical buyer’s journey will look like and what you can expect a potential query to look like for each specific phase.

  • Awareness: “What’s the best smart speaker available?”
  • Interest: “Can you set an appointment with Google Home?”
  • Evaluation:Is Google more intelligent than Siri?
  • Purchase:How much does Google Home cost?”
  • Customer Support: “Why isn’t my Google Home not working?”
  • Loyalty: “What are some products that work with Google Home?”

Predicting which questions your customers are asking via smart speaker will help you to create a roadmap and design content that will guide them through each phase.

Add FAQs

Adding FAQs to your website is a great way to improve your SEO Ranking for popular questions surrounding your products or services. Google is already displaying popular questions in their organic search results.

If you take these questions and provide in-depth and helpful answers, there’s a good chance that Google or another search engine will feature your answer as a rich snippet. Since smart speakers almost always rely on rich snippets for the answers of questions, this can serve as an amazing boost to your website.

Is Your Website Ready?

It takes a lot of effort to make sure that your website is ready for voice search. If you want to receive professional assistance, give us a call at (214) 295-5845 or visit our website at Agency Partner Interactive for more information.

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “How To Optimize Your Website for Voice Searchinstead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!