Brand “authority” is ever elusive - everyone wants it, but no one is quite sure how to get it. When it is achieved, it becomes difficult to keep.
Google often rewards brands with high authority in terms of enjoying higher search result rankings over competitors with less authority.
Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to achieving brand authority online. It requires months of strategic thinking, hard work and careful execution.
Below is a clear and simple breakdown of how you can use content and SEO to build your brand’s authority online.
Step 1: Content Strategy
Producing content that is valuable to your existing and/or potential customers is a great way to build your brand’s authority online. It is important to always have a strategy in place when doing so. However, without a proper plan or strategy in place, you will risk producing content that is inconsistent with your brand or the values that are important to your audience.
The benefits of having a solid content strategy in place include:
- Ensuring that content output is consistent over time
- Outlining all that you need to create authority - building content (i.e. budget, topics, keywords and resources)
- Helping you plan your content outputs for the future (i.e. scheduling posts, strategic dates and events)
- Ensuring that the content you are producing is the most relevant to your audience
Having a solid content strategy in place provides many benefits while on your quest to building brand authority.
Step 2: Transparent Knowledge Sharing
It is extremely important to demonstrate your knowledge-base and expertise through knowledge sharing. By sharing knowledge with your audience - you build trust, showcase your subject-matter expertise and build brand authority.
It is essential to be transparent when sharing your knowledge, ensuring that it is free from any ulterior motives or hidden agenda - customers can sniff this out. By being transparent when sharing your knowledge, your audience will find you helpful. Furthermore, they will be more receptive to consume your content, confident that they are not secretly being sold on anything. This builds trust at the same time as it builds authority in your audience’s eyes. Help them solve a real problem that they face and they will remember you.
Step 3: Community Participation
Every industry has a community - find yours and start getting involved today!
Regularly interacting with your industry peers by sharing content and information on social media networks and making real connections is another important step in building your brand’s authority.
Not only will your industry peers start to associate you and your brand with a credible presence, but it will also help you keep up-to-date on the latest developments and news in your industry - helping to fuel your next content output.
Further, it also gives you an opportunity to present your content to others in the industry. With the right exposure and quality content, you will soon start to build the reputation of being an authority in your industry.
Producing relevant content, sharing it with your industry peers and engaging in discussions with them will help build your brand’s authority.
Step 4: Long-Form Content and Keyword Targeting
Producing long-form content gives you more of an opportunity to showcase your subject-matter expertise compared to short-form content.
In your long-form content, we recommend targeting valuable informational long-tail keywords. This will allow your long-form content to rank on Google for these keywords, demonstrating your industry expertise and brand authority.
Remember: quality is important!
Step 5: Focus on Specific Topics
We recommend focusing deeply on one or two specific subject areas rather than to provide surface-level information on a wide variety of topics.
Produce content with the intent of “owning” the subject matter. By focusing thoroughly on one or two specific areas, you have the opportunity to demonstrate expertise on a deep and valuable level. This also gives you the opportunity to link your related content to each other, making it more discoverable for your audience and reinforcing your authority the deeper they dig into your related content.
This strategy is a great way to establish brand authority and boost your Google ranking.
In Conclusion
Building a reputable presence and brand authority does not happen overnight. It takes time, planning and careful execution.
Using content and SEO are great ways of achieving brand authority online.
