In the ever-evolving landscape of online visibility, mastering topical authority is important to unlocking the secrets of the digital realm. For local businesses seeking more than just a mere presence online, it’s imperative to delve into the intricacies of establishing authority within your specific niches. I created this post because there is A LOT of content around topical authority but I have never seen it executed or laid out for local business owners. We have been executing this for nearly a year and our results have been astronomical.
In this guide, we’ll navigate the complexities of topical authority and show you the secrets to success for businesses looking to dominate their local market.
1. Crafting a Content Blueprint with Chat GPT
Creating topical authority begins with a meticulously crafted content strategy. Leveraging the power of AI, we can tailor blog post ideas that resonate with our target audience. To do this, we want to execute the following prompt in Chat GPT.
“Give me 6 blog post ideas that are semantically relevant to San Francisco Movers”
This creates a situation where we are creating articles on the services that you provide at a very high level. We are showing Google that we are the authority on your topic and the BEST option to rank for ALL of your main keywords. Here are the results of it.
- “Navigating San Francisco: A Guide to Moving Day Success”
- “The Ultimate Packing Guide for San Francisco Apartments”
- “Moving Safely: Precautions for San Francisco’s Unique Terrain”
- “Budget-Friendly Moving Solutions for San Francisco Residents”
- “Surviving Moving Day Stress: San Francisco Edition”
- “Settling In: Tips for Adjusting to Life in San Francisco After a Move”
Notice how all of the posts have your main city in it and your industry terms such as moving day, packing guide, apartments, moving safely, budget-friendly, moving solutions, San Francisco residents, etc… This is extremely effective because it creates high-level topical authority clusters that we can use to cover the entire topic. When we’re showing Google that we have 6 blog posts that are HIGHLY relevant to our keyword, it shows that we’re MUCH MORE than just a landing page.
Before you start building this content out, you should make slight changes based on search volume around those blog topics. With slight changes, you can target what people are searching for very well.
Now, you can start working on building the content. I would not recommend using Chat GPT for your content.
2. Intelligently Interlinking Content for Maximum Impact
Once we’ve carefully crafted our content, the next step is intelligently interlinking each piece to reinforce topical authority. By adhering to the rule of linking each post to two others, we create a robust network of interconnected resources. This not only enhances user experience but also signals to search engines the depth of our expertise on the topic.
Once you have interlinked the posts to each other, we want to link ALL of the posts to the page that we want to rank that main keyword. This is also a strategy that you can use to fix keyword cannibalization issues. The anchor text should be at the highest possible relevant words you have to the post you’re linking to.
This is exactly what you need to do to create high-level topical authority clusters that will provide amazing results for your local marketing efforts.
3. Be Patient & Enjoy Results
Once you’ve executed these secrets of topical authority, it’s essential to give Google time to index our content and watch the leads flow in. Patience is key in the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing. By staying vigilant and monitoring our results, we can refine our strategies and unlock even greater success. We have seen many different results in executing this. Some of our clients have seen success right away and others were a bit slower to see them but saw much better results.
Personal Experience & Results:
In my journey toward establishing topical authority for local businesses, I’ve witnessed firsthand the transformative power of a strategic content approach. By meticulously curating relevant topics and intelligently interlinking content, I’ve seen exponential growth in organic traffic and lead generation. This approach not only enhances visibility but also fosters trust and credibility within the community.
We executed this strategy for a competitive city in the HVAC space. This picture shows the results but it is important to note that on Semrush, I was only searching for their city keywords. The website performs much better than this. I searched their city to break it down into a micro experiment and isolate the results of the topical authority strategy. These are the results.
The crazy part about the results that we’ve experienced is that the results were CONSISTENT. We had a 30% growth every 2 weeks for 3 months. I’ve never experienced anything that was so consistently growing in the SEO industry over the last 13 years. At the point of this screenshot, we have seen a 30% increase for the city keywords for 2.5 straight months and it’s still going.
We were able to add $7000 of leads per month for their main city. That’s a huge deal for this client and this significantly reduces the amount of PPC dollars they have to spend to fill the calendar.
In conclusion, mastering topical authority is not merely a goal but a journey towards digital dominance. By adhering to a topical authority blueprint, intelligently interlinking resources, and cultivating patience, local businesses can unlock the secrets to long-term success in the ever-evolving world of online marketing. Let’s implement this journey together and unlock the full potential of your business’s online presence.