Once you’ve decided to establish a website that your target demographic regards as the most useful source of information on a particular topic, building and maintaining that site is your next challenge. An authority site can be as simple or complex as the topic demands. You might even choose to gradually expand it, to address related issues and keep your audience coming back for more.
Focus on Your Target Demographic
What type of person are you hoping to attract to your site? Who needs the information you have to offer? What are their specific questions and concerns? These are the questions you should ask yourself, in order to better understand your target demographic.
Consider the age, average education level, geographic location, and other important characteristics of your audience. Always keep these facts in mind as you build your site.
For example, a website targeted to an older audience might require a larger font for easy reading, smooth and uncomplicated navigation, and fewer flashy “bells and whistles”. The design for a website aimed at Baby Boomers will look very different from a site designed for Generation Z.
Provide Quality Information
The original intent of an authority site is to identify one or more primary questions that your target demographic is asking, and then build a site to conveniently provide answers. Some people think that a website must contain a certain number of pages, or look a certain way, in order to be considered an “authority”. That’s not really true; if your site offers reliable information that directly answers important questions, it can be considered an authority site.
However, as your audience becomes educated on the topic, new questions might (and probably will) arise. You can, and often should, continue to add pages to your site in order to remain a top authoritative source of information. In addition to adding new pages periodically, continue to revisit old pages to clarify and improve them as needed.
Driving Traffic to Your Site
With an authority site, you will focus on driving two types of traffic to your site:
- Traffic from organic search engine queries
- Paid traffic
- Traffic from referrals
In order to attract organic traffic from search queries, your site needs to be highly ranked with search engines. Search engine optimization, or SEO, involves the utilization of important keywords along with high quality content. Research on keywords will help you to uncover the primary ones associated with your subject matter.
Pages should be expertly written. Avoid “keyword stuffing”, or overusing keywords so that the content sounds awkward and redundant. Search engines do favor the use of keywords, but only in the context of content that provides real value to the user.
Keep in mind that organic traffic takes time and consistent effort to attain. While you build your organic rankings, consider using paid traffic for faster results.
Paid traffic can be search engine ads, social media ads, ads on 3rd party sites or any other form of advertising that brings visitors to your website – including “off line” methods such as direct mail or print ads.
Finally, your site will gain traffic from referrals if you consistently provide answers to users’ questions. Repeat visitors will share your site with their friends and family who need access to the same information.
Continue to Provide Value
Remember that your goal is to attract people who want/need your services, educate them appropriately, establish yourself as a leader within your field, and build enough trust to convert those visitors into prospects and clients. In order to do this, you must continually provide value to this audience through the content of your website. Always be looking for ways to appeal to them, educate them, and answer their most pressing questions.
Need more information about authority sites, how to build them, and what to do next? Get in touch with us and we will show you, step-by-step, how to build and maintain an authority site that helps you meet your goals.
