Topical authority isn’t a new idea in search engine optimization (SEO), but over the years, it has become increasingly important. The days of having tons of unrelated posts on your blog in the hopes of capturing random passersby through keyword stuffing are specks of dust in the review mirror. Now, if you want to rank for informational copy on Google, you must prove your site has expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) on topics that are relevant to your company’s purpose.
For example, if your website specializes in selling kitchen cabinets, publishing a blog post about a favorite recipe probably won’t help your rankings for cabinets or recipes. Cooking in a kitchen may be loosely related to cabinetry, but it isn’t relevant to builders or DIYers looking for the right fixtures for their homes.
Instead, you want to prove to Google that you are the authority on cabinets. Continuing with this example, we’ll show you how.
Semantic SEO
Semantic SEO is the process of organizing a website’s informational content around topics rather than keywords. Don’t get us wrong, keywords and topics are highly related, but topics are the building blocks of high-quality, comprehensive content. Here’s the difference:
- Keywords: When you build a page around a keyword, it’s obvious that you are trying to capture the search engine’s attention first, and your focus is not necessarily on helping the user make an educated decision. You work a certain keyword and its variations into your page in every way possible to ensure Google knows that’s what the page is about. Only these days, that’s not what Google is looking for. Keyword research is just the first step to creating a valuable page.
- Topics: Building a page about a topic requires you to show that you understand the topic completely so that you can explain it in terms that make the nuances of it clear to novices and pros alike. You use variations of the keywords naturally in the copy while providing insights that prove your expertise and experience with the subject.
Pillar or Hub Pages
Two proven ways to organize your content around the topics your company wants to be known for are pillar pages and the hub and spokes model.
- Pillar pages are pages that provide an overview of a topic in a single comprehensive piece of content that answers any questions a user might have.
- Hub pages are pages that introduce a topic and then link to other pages (spokes) that go deeper into subtopics. Think of it as going down a rabbit hole while staying on the same website. The key is to internally link between all the subtopics and the hub page.
Either form of organization can help Google understand how much authority your company has on a given topic. If a person queries “What type of wood is best for kitchen cabinets,” you can answer the question on a pillar page with an overview of the different options, an in-depth look at the pros and cons of each, and a section of frequently asked questions – all on one page, or you can create a page about the different types of wood and then link from that page to other pages that explain the pros and cons of each type, all interlinked.
Author Credibility
While it’s not necessary to list an author on your informational posts, it can certainly help readers understand how trustworthy your page is as a source. Letting the users know that the author of a post has relevant experience can build your website’s credibility. For example, if the person writing about popular cabinet doors is one of your company’s top salesmen, that fact would earn more trust than a random writer at a content farm.
That said, if your writer isn’t an expert on the topic, asking an expert to review the post and put their stamp of approval on it is another way to build credibility.
Stay in Your Lane
Going back to the question of why you would post a recipe on a website that sells kitchen cabinets (please don’t), it’s important to stick with what you know when it comes to informational pages. You can spend years building your authority on a topic and then detract from it with one misguided, off-topic post, especially if that post is one of the first things a new visitor sees. Or if Google decides that post doesn’t fit with your website and could be spammy, the search engine might downgrade your entire blog, or worse, your website.
If you really want to post recipes, we suggest you start a second website devoted to your favorite meals.
The goal of building SEO topical authority is to make your brand synonymous with the products you sell or the services you provide. It’s a process that helps improve upper-funnel reach as much as lower-funnel conversions. If you’re ready to improve your website’s E-E-A-T, contact us to start the conversation!
