If you’ve been involved in the world of SEO for more than a few weeks then you’ve probably heard people talking about authority sites, especially in the fallout from the rolling updates Google have been pushing out into the SEO world. There are some pretty common (and huge) misunderstandings out there about authority sites and this is especially in relation to how to structure them, how “big” they need to be and of course the type of SEO you should do with them to get them ranking. Put simply an authority site is a “large” and comprehensive website or blog which is filled with authoritative information on a specific subject.
What I want to do today is take some time to look at the most important points to include when putting together your authority website, so you can avoid the most common pitfalls.
Structure
You need to plan your site well in advance and you can either use a mind mapping tool to do this or just sketch it out on paper. One of the best ways to structure an authority site is to use a system called “siloing”. This is where you plan and then create groups of pages which are very tightly focused on a specific subject. So let’s take the example of a site about acne treatments with a silo about “natural acne treatments.” Within this silo you’d have a set of pages about the best natural acne treatments, acne treatments you can make at home etc etc. Using this structure provides you with lots of SEO “juice” and gives you tons of internal linking opportunities too.
You can’t start an authority site and then try to figure out what structure to use – you need to plan it all out first. You can create a site with the silo model in just about any CMS or web development program.
How Many Pages?
