Among all the noise surrounding AI Overviews and SGE in the last few months, one factor has rather quietly emerged as the on-page ranking key in the wake of the March core update.
We’re talking about topic authority (which this report from June brings into focus).
It shouldn’t be surprising to today’s SEO experts that building full and comprehensive authority on and around a topic is a great way to build organic engagement. White-hat SEO has for the last couple of years focused on building valuable, authentic, rich content on fast-loading, easy-to-navigate website properties.
But there’s more to it than that. Here’s how to think about topic authority, the most important rankings factor of 2024.
Go Broad
It’s almost always the case that a topic has concentric topics that users will find valuable. For instance, a real estate company would find plenty of interest with an article on considerations for finding the right mortgage rates and terms.
Don’t just stake out your claim as an authority on your specific topic; build a moat of related topics, and do your research at regular intervals to make sure you continue to add topics as they emerge.
Go Deep
Any singular perspectives and insights your organization can deliver on a topic will go a long way toward establishing your authority.
Proprietary research is a great option here, particularly if you can combine it with analysis to help readers understand the “so what” behind the data. In the example of real estate, it might be something like (I’m making this up), “demand for three-bedroom houses is higher than it’s been in the last 30 years, so prices are artificially high. Buyers looking to avoid paying inflated costs should explore larger two-bedroom houses with room to add a third bedroom.”
There are other options as well: comprehensive guides (“Everything a Prospective New Homeowner Needs to Know Before Making an Offer”), whitepapers, and case studies should all be on the table in your topic authority strategy.
Get Inclusive
Speaking of going broad, find experts in those closely related topics, and offer to publish their (original) content on your earned properties. Following through on the example above, a longtime pro in the mortgage industry might be able to give a great perspective on trends and interest-rate fluctuations.
Guest contributors do more than add valuable content to your site; they’re often more than willing to promote that content, which means you’ll have another party contributing to your organic reach.
You can and should also try to find expert internal and external voices who can speak with authority to your core topics. Known thought leaders with large spheres of influence are great, but the most important piece of the puzzle here is expertise. You should have a specific reason for inviting someone to contribute content, whether that’s a unique POV, tons of experience in your field, or an association with a well-known organization that will be familiar to your users.
Get Practical
You can check some important boxes for both engagement and consideration by providing content of your product or service in use—across industries for B2B or demographics for B2C. Case studies, real-life applications, user testimonials and perspectives—those serve plenty of uses along the customer journey and should be incorporated into your content plan.
Remember to Crowdsource
You can be both active and passive about collecting content ideas from your audience. Social media monitoring and customer service interactions will give you a nice drip of input, but you can also deploy surveys and pointed outreach to discover things like new use cases and related topics of interest.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of gathering qualitative insights from your audience is that it’s highly effective in surfacing trends before Google does, which means you can get a jump on addressing them over competitors who stick to more traditional forms of research.
Go Away (from Google)
One of the most effective ways to build your brand’s topic authority is to engage users away from Google, on platforms like Reddit, Quora and TikTok.
Google has throttled back on some of the junkier Reddit and Quora content in the SERP, but given its exclusive deal to show Reddit content, I expect this to shift as the algo gets better at determining valuable content to pull. You won’t just get more engagement on those platforms; you’ll get referral traffic from Google and the potential for a boost in brand search volume.
Final Thoughts
You’ll notice that none of this explicitly mentioned AI, and there’s a reason: doing what’s good for SERP engagement will also increase your brand’s chances of being pulled into AI Overviews. If that’s not enough reason to get serious, understand that great, authoritative content will have powerful ripple effects along the full customer journey.
Kelly Ayres is Director of SEO at Jordan Digital Marketing.
