5 Ways to Craft Authoritative Content

Everyone loves a website that ranks, but content churned out with rankings in mind will get found out sooner or later - particularly in a post helpful content update era.

An SEO strategy that leads to well ranked content and delivers a helpful experience for users is the perfect combination.

Here’s an inside look at how to give your site the best possible chance of enjoying both and achieving that holiest of Google grails of genuine authority.

What are search engines looking for?

A search engine’s reputation relies on the trustworthiness of its SERPS, so of course they are going to roll out ever more intricate algorithms to ensure the best sites reach the right eyes. For those that overlook that fact, there are plenty of search result pages beneath page one to get lost in...

So regardless of the type of content you are delivering, here are five valuable lessons to apply to your content initiatives.

1. Depth beats Breadth

Why build your content miles wide and only inches deep when it should be the other way around?

With that in mind, think about a content strategy like this:

Top level web pages: These can act as a taster, or a collection of summaries that easy to disseminate in moments, however they could (and should) be linked to...

Mid-level web pages: Here is where your deep dives should live, your in-depth product reviews, descriptions of services etc. These in turn can be backed up by...

Supporting content: How-to guides, industry specific blogs and recent news stories in your niche can all be included here for real depth.

2. Building topical authority is worth it

So what is the best way to go about it?

How about picking a search term and striving to own those search results?

For product reviews that search term might be obvious but how many sites go the extra mile by offering the product comparisons and supporting content that people find so useful? How many demonstrate they’ve even seen and used the products in question?

Search data is priceless for finding additional use cases to fill any content gaps as is updated topic pages when invariably things change.

3. Having a purpose

In the scramble for page one of the SERPS; it is easy to forget the purpose of a site and that reason why it was created in the first place.

That reason can be a single one, or it can be several.

However given Google’s definition that each page must have a beneficial and clearly helpful purpose, this means asking yourself questions such as:

• What is the purpose of this web page?
• What will viewers expect to be on this page?
• How do they expect to see the content?

4. Present your content in the most useful way possible

Presenting content in a given way can make it clear what is important, especially in top-level pages (see section 1) all you need to do then is guide them deeper and if you do it right, they’ll come with you.

Whether the content is text, images, videos or tables it must help your main content to achieve its purpose in a way that your viewer understands.

Any supplementary content should aim to facilitate that main content on a page but avoid distracting from it at all costs.

5. Show your E.A.T proudly

Expertise: This can be shown by adding author bios or even an opening paragraph detailing things such as their background, the things that make them qualified on any given topic and how long they have been covering it.

Authoritativeness: If you have spent hours and hours testing a product, testing a theory or using a service, that’s a big deal in light of Google’s Product Review Updates. An introduction section is a good place to provide this overview along with a link to the product or service itself.

Trustworthiness: Is the culmination of everything above but it is also a measure of two important things; one is accuracy and the other is transparency.

Find out more about E-A-T in Google's search quality evaluator guidelines.

If a product is out of stock or a service temporarily unavailable, then it’s time to update. This helps demonstrate that your site provides up to date information.

If you are offering opinions or recommending products how are you forming those opinions or testing the products? People will listen, but first and foremost you have to prove to them why they should!