Why I Started (And Stopped) Building 'Authority Sites'

[lightningblitz]

OK, this explain why my "wanna be" authority site rank nowhere in serp for 6 months lol.
Anyway, my strategy now is to use semrush and see what keywords my 40 posts ranked for. Then I build a PBN around that KWs.
But this somehow make an unnatural link as a few of my posts has a lot more powerful links than others.

You got a penalty? Most likely your PBN was not great.

Some tips for someone in the middle of doing an 'Authority Site':

1. Start Social Pages NOW and build them out for traffic
2. Do regular Press Releases (Weekly)
3. Focus on the EASIEST KW first
4. Build a LOT of naked URLs to the home page

That should get your site moving in the right direction if you chose to continue.

 

[charliebrooker]

I think the problem here is defining "authority". Authority in most niches as defined by the OP as the "go to" name is almost impossible. But having authority enough to rank strongly for a broad range of terms, that is different.

 

[lightningblitz]

You do not need to be the 'goto' but you need to be in the conversation IMO. The brand power of an authority site is where you make money without trying.

A better way to describe this would be this, what are the major or best food food places in the US?

- McDonalds
- Burger King
- Taco Bell
- KFC
- Wendys
..
..
..
..

You catch the drift. Some people may mention 'Jack in the Box' or 'Hardees'. When someone mentions them everyone should know what they are and know where one is.

Let me apply this to SEO.

Wikipedia may be the number one 'authority site' but when you look at a niche like 'Video Game Hacks' people who know the niche should be able to list a few 'top sites'. Those are the 'authority sites' of that niche.

 

[Shadeofblack]

One of the better contributions to the BHW community. Well done and thanks for your insight.

 

[Crashtest]

I wish I'd read that a year ago, thanks OP, realizing what's so hard in it right now eventhough I already had i slight idea why my last 10 months of work did not span into a great project! haha Had to try it on my own though!

 

[kiko_an]

Thank you for the valuable information.

I am building and "authority" website on a domain i bought before two years. The website is live from 1 month and are uploaded 40 articles. It have 60 more to be upload and more are ordered. I don't think the website is valuable only because of it's articles, it have great features and tools that will help the visitors. I have made a lot of social signals too. The website don't rank for any keyword for any article. It ranked in the beginning for a keyword from one of the articles and then disappeared. I don't get a single visitor from google. Is this normal for a new website? I have a lot more websites and most of them started to get traffic very fast after they were uploaded.

 

[Shyren]

Thank you for the valuable information.

I am building and "authority" website on a domain i bought before two years. The website is live from 1 month and are uploaded 40 articles. It have 60 more to be upload and more are ordered. I don't think the website is valuable only because of it's articles, it have great features and tools that will help the visitors. I have made a lot of social signals too. The website don't rank for any keyword for any article. It ranked in the beginning for a keyword from one of the articles and then disappeared. I don't get a single visitor from google. Is this normal for a new website? I have a lot more websites and most of them started to get traffic very fast after they were uploaded.

I have a 20 days old website with roughly 15 articles, I rank on google for 13 keywords right now (Not on the first page ). Out of 13, 10 keywords are from a single article. So if your website is new, how well you rank on Googlei depends on your keyword selection .

 

[kiko_an]

Shyren thank you for your reply.

All articles are based on low competition long tail keywords. I will wait some time and with build some quality backlinks with no author text and will hope after that it will start ranking.

I have a 20 days old website with roughly 15 articles, I rank on google for 13 keywords right now (Not on the first page ). Out of 13, 10 keywords are from a single article. So if your website is new, how well you rank on Googlei depends on your keyword selection .

 

[SERPSEOSolutions]

Some good words of advice, I myself have attempted to build authority sites and nearly all of them have gone unfinished, definitely a long a turbulent road.

I know most people will not succeed in building an authority site, but will you be posting more info about your journey in getting there?

 

[lightningblitz]

I wish I'd read that a year ago, thanks OP, realizing what's so hard in it right now eventhough I already had i slight idea why my last 10 months of work did not span into a great project! haha Had to try it on my own though!

Do not give up on that site. Keep it around and re visit it when you get time. It will eventually rank but when you get experience you will know what you 'did wrong'.

Thank you for the valuable information.

I am building and "authority" website on a domain i bought before two years. The website is live from 1 month and are uploaded 40 articles. It have 60 more to be upload and more are ordered. I don't think the website is valuable only because of it's articles, it have great features and tools that will help the visitors. I have made a lot of social signals too. The website don't rank for any keyword for any article. It ranked in the beginning for a keyword from one of the articles and then disappeared. I don't get a single visitor from google. Is this normal for a new website? I have a lot more websites and most of them started to get traffic very fast after they were uploaded.

It is normal. Google takes longer to place you now.

I have found I rank a high comp KW quicker than an easy now. Why? Because I take my time and do not blast away. I use just enough resources to rank.

Build some links, some G+s, and keep plugging away.

Shyren thank you for your reply.

All articles are based on low competition long tail keywords. I will wait some time and with build some quality backlinks with no author text and will hope after that it will start ranking.

Build a couple exact match anchors so google knows what your page is about. Re check on page as well. This is a common mistake.

Some good words of advice, I myself have attempted to build authority sites and nearly all of them have gone unfinished, definitely a long a turbulent road.

I know most people will not succeed in building an authority site, but will you be posting more info about your journey in getting there?

Will I? I could explain how I did it if people wanted.

 

[Crazy Monkey]

You raised some really good points lightning. I was thinking about that while I was building my "authority site", I just want people to think of my site when they think of my niche.

I need accepting step

 

[nimdekvan]

You got a penalty? Most likely your PBN was not great.

Some tips for someone in the middle of doing an 'Authority Site':

1. Start Social Pages NOW and build them out for traffic
2. Do regular Press Releases (Weekly)
3. Focus on the EASIEST KW first
4. Build a LOT of naked URLs to the home page

That should get your site moving in the right direction if you chose to continue.

No, it wasn't get penalty. I added 9 PBNs to my single article (the others 39 articles got no link)
Quite low competition. LTP said that keyword has 19 KC but yeah I got only #9-10 now (with a powerful PR2-3 x 10 tumblr pointing at that article)

What I really want to know is about link juice---how does link juice spread?
Like if my category has 5 posts and I put a link on "category page" will the link juice be spread equally to 5 of them ? Or is it depend on something else?
And if I put a link to one of the post will the others 4 posts received link juice power ?

 

[lightningblitz]

That would depend how your interlinking was and how your silo or site structure was set up.

It would spread some link juice if you did everything right. What were your anchors like?

 

[dwpg002]

How many days you take to rank this "smaller properties I make more money" and what you do with PBN network once you lose the ranking. Because you can't use the same network to rank another money site. And what will be average budget to rank smaller properties sites

 

[lightningblitz]

How many days to rank a smaller site? Depends on KW competition entirely and how many resources I allocate to the project. My biggest problem is I have too many projects and not enough resources to finish everything.

I do not lose rankings (Normally) once I get to the top. I trickle in links one at a time until I get the ranking I want, every couple of days.

I have a PBN and Web 2.0 PBN on standby to rank up my sites. When I place a link to a specific money site I put the PBN domain in an excel sheet for that domain. I keep track of every domain I use to rank a specific site.

Then, I either sell links from the site, rank client sites randomly or use the links for parasites. I never use a network to overlap to another site, and this requires just good record keeping.

Budget? Depends on KW competition. Generally a couple hundred to rank a smaller site, up to a thousand or so.

But my 'small sites' are bigger than your average SEOs. At least ten pages and several dozen KWs. That is how I make such ROI is I target a lot using as few resources as possible.

 

[obiwan69]

nice post, bookmarked this as well.

 

[SeoPublicist]

The quicker money is in smaller sites. The long term money is in creating a real authority website. The problem is, no matter how large your site becomes it may never be an 'Authority Site'.

Clearly I obviously agree with you OP:tee:

..but on my end I think most folks get discouraged because the lack of a systematic approach to a proven money maker. Adsense, affiliate Amazon sites are proven businesses. The moment beginners (I remember my thoughts of quitting back in the day) most of us don't make XY like the advertised push buttons to earn $5k or XY a month, there's a new jump for the next biz opportunity. The new easy way to make XY amount of money from CPA, Amazon, dropshipping, Adsense, eBook, Apps or the next guru that has a fancy new sales pitch. Oh I remember those days and my mind spinning. Glad I've now grown a few white ones on my somewhat bold top haha..and I had to say that. Oh well.

Good one OP.

 

[Jobdollarr]

The bottom line is, small test,,,, then a larger scale if the technique was successful

 

[nimdekvan]

That would depend how your interlinking was and how your silo or site structure was set up.

It would spread some link juice if you did everything right. What were your anchors like?

My anchors are random naked URL/my target kws/random sentences(of course relevant to the target niche)
The site structure is simple silo but yeah that link power pointing at only 1 post is stupid...the reason I did this is because semrush show me that I surprisingly ranked for that keyword.
Anyway, if instead I point link to "category 4" the post 4.1 4.2 4.3 should received same amount of link juices? (theoretically)

 

[blackbeans]

But doesn't it all really boil down to outreach and great content?

I mean, let's face it... great brands don't pop up overnight