Building Authority Through Great Content
One of the biggest trends in the world of digital marketing today is “content authority,” the idea of building yourself as a trusted source in your company’s particular field. Over the course of the next several weeks, we are going to discuss in detail the major components of authority content, which include quality, trust, branding ability and influence. Today, however, let’s get a general sense of what exactly authority content is and why it’s important for businesses to develop a strategy that positions themselves as a respected authority.
Content authority: a general overview
By now, most brands that have an online presence understand they must engage in content marketing to be able to maximize their visibility and their ability to generate new leads and conversions. However, a large portion of these brands still do not understand how to plan out a content strategy that will make their marketing campaign successful.
The methodology of content authority helps you better understand how to increase the effectiveness of your content throughout your marketing campaign, rather than just helping you figure out what to write. If you fully understand content authority, you will be able to improve your search engine visibility, your social media engagement and your linking on external sites relevant to your company.
Of course, the additional visibility and engagement you get online through authority content is only one of the reasons why you should strive to be an online authority in your field. Here are a few more of the primary advantages of becoming an online authority:
● You will gain significantly more trust from prospects and customers, which in turn is likely to lead to more sales.
● You will gain the respect of your peers in your industry, which could open up avenues for some beneficial and lucrative business opportunities and partnerships.
● You will be able to get traction on various new ventures and projects significantly faster, which will help you cut down on how much you’re spending on your marketing campaigns.
● You will get significantly more traffic and links to your website or blog from people who view you as a go-to source in your industry.
● You will get many more referrals, both online and offline, from people who have seen your content and know you to be a trustworthy company.
Individual authority as important as brand authority
As you begin creating content on your website and blog, one of the first decisions you will need to make is whether this content will be under the name of the brand, or of the individual person who developed the content.
These days, the trend seems to be to have individuals posting content under their names on company websites. This makes sense, when you think about it. People want to be able to connect with other people, not anonymous brands, and content marketing is all about forging strong connections. If people have a name or face to associate a piece of content with, they will be able to connect to that content more deeply, and therefore be more easily influenced by what they are reading.
As each individual author publishes more content, there are several benefits here that cannot be understated. The company benefits in that this content is being published to its site, showing that the business has a number of intelligent thought leaders in its field working for it. The individual benefits in that they will have content tied to their name, helping them build themselves up as thought leaders and influencers in their field. It’s essentially a win/win arrangement for brands and individuals alike.
Measuring content authority success
As with any other marketing tactic, you need to be able to measure the success of your authority content to truly be able to build authority.
A big metric to pay attention to is customer journey. Where are users entering your website? After they read one blog post, are they likely to read another one or make a purchase, or do they leave the site right away?
Time spent on each page is also a big metric to watch. Higher time per page indicates users are taking the time needed to carefully read your content and take in all of the information it contains. A low time per page or high bounce rate indicates the content might need work.
Other metrics to pay attention to include sentiment, ranking, views, conversions, clicks, impressions, completions, shares and more.
Now that you have a general knowledge of what content authority is, we will move on next week to discussing the first element of creating content authority: developing high-quality content.
Queen of the Machine for Viral Solutions LLC
“If a brand genuinely wants to make a social contribution, it should start with who they are, not what they do. For only when a brand has defined itself and its core values can it identify causes or social responsibility initiatives that are in alignment with its authentic brand story.” ~ Simon Mainwaring
At Viral Solutions we are committed to seeing YOU succeed. It is our goal to grow your business with proven digital marketing strategies that will help your business for the long haul.
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