Topical Authority & SEO: The Essentials for Content Marketing
Topical authority helps establish your business as the go-to expert, but it can also help your SEO efforts.
Let’s do a quick thought experiment: Imagine you needed specialized advice on a liver condition.
You wouldn't just consult any doctor; you'd seek out a hepatologist, an expert in liver health, right?
While your primary care physician might be able to provide some insight, the hepatologist’s deep knowledge and understanding make them the go-to authority on liver-related issues because they’re a specialist.
Topical Authority is Specialized, Expert Knowledge
This concept of specialized knowledge—known as “topical authority” in the world of content marketing—also applies to businesses aiming to improve their search engine rankings.
In the realm of SEO, topical authority refers to a website's expertise and depth of information in specific subject areas.
In a nutshell, you want your business’ website to be seen as THE authority on topics your customers are searching for. To do this, you need to establish topical authority.
Being seen as the topical authority means your brand’s site is more likely to be ranked higher than the competition for search queries from customers
Why is Topical Authority Important?
Just like in our example above, customers want to find the foremost authority – the best answer – to their queries when using search engines.
At the same time, search engines want to display results that match searchers with the best results that match search intent with authoritative results.
The more authority you have on a topic, the more likely search engines are to rank your site higher in search results for relevant and related searches.
How Does Topical Authority Affect SEO Efforts?
We touched on this above, but topical authority is important for SEO because it tells search engines what your site is about so that search engines can then essentially extrapolate meaning for search engine users.
The more topical authority your content demonstrates, the higher the likelihood that it will rank well for relevant queries.
The result? More potential customers will find your site above your competition.
Associating related words and topics through semantics, content clusters, and links can help to build topical authority while boosting SEO and providing in-depth content to customers
An Example of How to Use Topical Authority in Your SEO & Content Strategies
For example, if your company sells running shoes, you would obviously want to have information on your site about the actual shoes your brand sells.
Beyond that, however, you would want to associate words, topics, and phrases that have to do with shoes, running, athletics, running and fitness, and other topics related directly and indirectly to the shoes you sell.
Essentially, you want your site to be the foremost authority on all things related to running shoes in the eyes of search engines. This is because search engines read content on your site using machine learning and natural language processing technologies.
Topical Authority is Vital in the Age of AI
Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT may also read and train on your site’s content. This is how AI knows to present information about your company and products or services when interacting with users.
Including semantically related words, phrases, and topics in your content helps to define entities and build topical authority
The Role of Semantically Related Keywords and Entities
Semantics relates to the meaning of words and how they relate to the “being-ness” of topics.
We mentioned above about how running shoes can be related to fitness, and that’s a semantic connection. Search engines and LLMs use semantics to understand and organize information found online.
Without getting too technical, ideas, topics, and physical objects are organized into entities. Entity SEO refers to the process of explaining and describing what an entity is to search engines and LLMs so that each entity can be linked across the web.
You are an entity, your company is an entity, your products, and services are entities, your service areas are entities, and so on.
Building Broad Connections in Your Content
So while SEO in the past focused on keywords, modern SEO focuses on building broader connections between entities (i.e. ideas and topics). This approach helps search engines produce more relevant results and helps to categorize results rather than pigeonhole them.
You can enhance topical authority through content marketing by embracing various types of content to present various aspects of a subject in different ways to your audiences
Enhancing Topical Authority Through Content Marketing
Now that we understand a bit about how topical authority and SEO work together, this leads us to ask, “How does topical authority fit into content marketing?”
Content marketing is an inbound marketing approach that relies on digital content to form relationships with existing and potential customers.
Build Topical Authority By Producing High-Quality Content
Content marketing also plays a vital role in building topical authority. By consistently producing high-quality, relevant content, a brand can position itself as a thought leader in its industry.
This involves creating comprehensive articles, guides, videos, and other content forms that cover various aspects of a topic in-depth.
This is where the entity SEO portion of things comes into play. Below are some common forms of content marketing along with how they fit into the process of building topical authority:
In-Depth Articles
Long-form content that explores topics extensively can produce opportunities to link semantically related keywords and present a robust set of information about your business, products, and services.
Regular Updates
Keeping content fresh and relevant by regularly updating it with new information allows you to add new semantically related keywords to build further topical authority while reinforcing existing topical authority.
Internal links to owned media can be easy and helpful ways to create connections between content to demonstrate topical authority and provide SEO value
Internal Linking
Connecting related articles and resources within the website to create a cohesive knowledge hub allows you to tell search engines what content, phrases, entities, and so on are related to one another.
Internal links also help customers find relevant, related information about topics that interest them. Internal links are links to your owned media on your site.
You can create internal links in your content that point to other blog posts, articles, case studies, service pages, and more.
Learn more about earned media, owned media, and paid media in this post
Guest Contributions
Collaborating with industry experts to add credibility and variety to your content once again helps search engines connect your content to ideas and topics as well as authoritative sources to build topical authority.
When you add guest contributions to demonstrate authority, make sure you have verified the credentials of the person or organization contributing.
It’s also good to find contributors who have a strong presence on the web if possible so that you can link portions of the contribution to other parts of the Internet to boost credibility in the eyes of readers.
Natural language processing helps search engines “understand” the content you produce to derive meaning and build connections around entities and topics
Capitalizing on Natural Language Processing for Topical Authority and SEO
Natural language processing (NLP) has revolutionized how search engines interpret and rank content.
NLP enables search engines to better understand the nuances of human language, including context, synonyms, semantic relationships, and all that fun stuff that your brain does behind the scenes.
NLP used by search engines means that content needs to focus on creating natural links rather than an artificial focus on keywords.
In fact, because of NLP, trying to “optimize” content for keywords is relatively useless.
In a sense, search engines can “see through” attempts to stuff content full of keywords and, as a result, will simply ignore the padding.
An Example of How NLP, SEO, and Topical Authority All Work Together
So, going back to our example of an athletic shoe company, let’s take a look at how NLP, SEO, entities, and topical authority all work together.
Your athletic shoe brand’s website has information about the shoes your company sells. This content tells search engines that your site is about athletic shoes. Simple enough.
As you add helpful content to your site, you have the opportunity to expand and grow your topical authority and add value to your site from an SEO perspective
Add to Your Site’s Value By Expanding Your Content
You then develop blog posts that are hosted on your site and are posted weekly.
Each blog post is designed to provide in-depth information about athletic shoes. You might answer customer questions or offer tips for getting the most out of your products.
Search engines then begin to form a clearer picture of what kind of athletic shoes your company sells.
For instance, if you write a blog post about “Tips for Keeping Shoes Clean After a Marathon,” search engines then determine that your site sells athletic shoes for runners.
Topical authority can be a determining factor between your site and a competing site when all other factors are equal
How Search Engines React to Sites With Topical Authority
When someone searches for “running shoes”, your site may then appear in the results. The more information and semantically related words and phrases you’re able to build over time using content on your site, the more robust of a resource your site becomes.
This can help it rank higher because search engines will deem it to have more topical authority.
Much like the hepatologist example used at the beginning of this post, your site becomes a specialist in athletic shoes, and therefore, it is seen as the foremost authority in the eyes of search engines.
The above is a very, very basic, simplified example, but we used it to get the point across: Content builds topical authority which then helps improve SEO and ranking in search results.
Large language models and other AI technologies play a big role in how your site is found by customers querying chat bots for answers.
The Impact of Large Language Models and AI
We’ve touched on LLMs and AI briefly in other posts, but we want to take a closer look at how these technologies factor into things.
LLMs have quickly become an alternative to traditional search engines, and they will likely play a larger role in online searches in the future.
The idea behind entity SEO, also sometimes referred to as semantic SEO, plays heavily into optimizing content.
You want to get relevant content linked, both organically and semantically, to tell LLMs how to connect your brand to queries about its products and services.
AI Predicts Words Based on Topical and Semantic Associations
AI simply predicts what words should be joined together based on training data.
Training data for LLMs can come from any number of places on the web, so the more places where you can semantically link your brand to topics related to it (i.e. Your products and services, your industry, your service areas, etc.), the better your chances are of coming up in results provided by LLMs.
Machine Learning and Search Results
Machine learning algorithms also play a crucial role in determining search rankings.
These algorithms analyze user behavior, such as click-through rates, dwell time, and bounce rates, to assess the quality and relevance of content.
Content that engages users and meets their needs is more likely to rank higher.
When you start with topical authority in mind, you can build your content strategy around it to form a stronger SEO presence
Building a Content Strategy Around Topical Authority
To effectively build topical authority, your content marketing efforts should adopt a strategic approach:
Identify Core Topics
Determine the primary subjects that align with the brand’s expertise and target audience. These will be the pillars of all the content your brand produces.
To identify core topics, think broadly about the topic that you’re writing about.
For example, if your company manufactures fasteners for industrial applications, your core topics will be manufacturing, fasteners, and industrial.
You Can Expand on Core Topics Later
You can later expand on these topics to include helpful information about how your business and products factor into industries like logistics; However, your core topics will be the main aspects of your business, products, and customer base.
You can also find topics to include in your core topics by evaluating marketing personas, or profiles of different types of buyers. Personas provide an overview of a potential buyer’s pain points, hopes, fears, and other dimensions that affect their potential to convert into a customer.
You can use content clusters to develop content around a group of ideas and topics to improve SEO
Create Content Clusters
Develop clusters of content around each core topic, linking them together to establish a comprehensive resource.
These will help to flesh out a search engine’s understanding of just “what” your brand is and what terms are relevant to your brand.
For example, if you run a yoga studio, you could take a look at a source like the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health for a deeper look at topics that support yoga, health, fitness, overall wellness, and more.
Expanding Your Content Clusters
Expand your content cluster to include the health benefits of yoga, how yoga affects blood pressure, what certifications are required for yoga instructors, and more.
You could then develop content clusters based on the topics you find on the agency’s site to provide a robust and well-rounded
The goal is to build connections between related topics that demonstrate that your business is the authority on the topic in the area, hence “topical authority”.
This does not, however, mean that you need to write about every single detail of every single related topic. You want to present helpful, engaging content and not just develop content for search engines.
Providing first-hand experience helps to build topical authority and positively impact SEO performance
Provide First-Hand Experience When Possible
Lastly, your strategy should always include first-hand accounts or experience when possible.
Not only do customers and potential customers want to hear from the experts, but search engines also want to provide authentic content, especially in the age of generative AI that can spit out regurgitated drivel.
To do this, we recommend that you write in first person whenever possible. This isn't always feasible, but when giving an actual first-hand account, it’s often best to write your content as such.
Use Rich Media to Demonstrate First-Hand Experience
You can also include pictures and videos in your content to support your first-hand experience.
These types of rich media are important when demonstrating a before-and-after effect or when talking about the process of something.
You will also want to include these types of content when providing a review for a product or service or when delving deep into the details of a process.
While topical authority can be a great asset for SEO, never write specifically for search engines. Instead, focus on producing helpful content that benefits your customers
Topical Authority is Crucial for SEO, But Don’t Forget Your Customers
Topical authority is an incredibly important aspect of SEO, especially in the current digital landscape where search engine algorithms are more sophisticated than ever and LLMs are building connections based on entities.
As we mentioned above, your content doesn’t need to be so robust that it covers every single possible detail of every topic related to your business, but you do want to find topics and sub-topics that are of interest to your customers.
This encourages sharing which can earn new business, build brand awareness, and earn valuable backlinks. While producing fresh content frequently is also important, don’t sacrifice quality for quantity.
It’s usually better to put out fewer high-quality pieces of content rather than putting out a large number of low-quality pieces of content.
Contact Charlotte Content Marketing to Discuss Your Content Marketing Strategy Today!
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