Monday, November 28, 2011

Build Site Authority with Social Media

The days of traditional website authority building are long gone. So many innovative channels have become available today that on the surface can make the task seem much easier but require hard work, dedication, and a lot of strategy, too.

Website authority is nothing more than quality, as determined by major search engines. Most search engines take into consideration the number of quality inbound links, the age of the domain, the time visitors spend on the site, and hundreds of other factors. SEOMoz has done a great job of testing, analyzing, and figuring out what authority factors may exist – and best practices surrounding site authority.

One important part of building authority is paying attention to and doing your part to influence social metrics. You can do a number of things to help build your website’s authority with social media. Here are a few tips to help you along the way.

Get Real

Becoming an authority in a given industry isn’t something you can fake. Get real! Get passionate! Get creative!

Think about what it takes to develop expertise and become a sought out member in your industry and a sought out company too. This often requires regularly training staff to keep them up-to-date on industry related topics and constantly tapping into the vein of the industry. Use the information you find to help you craft clever content to add to your site and share on social media.


Seemingly simple, the task of figuring out your target demographic often isn’t easy. Conduct social listening research, send out customer surveys and conduct additional research. Use this information to help you understand how to craft your messaging through social media for maximum impact.

Also use the information to help you find particularly “nichey” social sites, forums and blogs. Niche social networks often create more meaningful interaction as reported. So look for sites that cater to your demographic and engage with them appropriately.

Share and Share-alike

Use the notion of share and share alike. This growing trend creates the belief that information should be free, readily available, and users should have the ability to share it/use it however they choose.

How does this apply to you? Don’t keep all that industry trade information to yourself. Start developing content and sharing ideas through social channels that address industry insider knowledge, answer industry questions, provides research data, and anything that showcases you and your brand as experts.

Participation is Key

Just because you might tweet out a few posts, have your content shared on Facebook, and get a few +1’s doesn’t mean you’re automatically seen as an expert or building up authority. Developing your brand’s own authority on a specific social networking platform is mandatory. This often involves being recognized by other authoritative users on the platform, having a lot of followers/friends/circle-ers/etc., high engagement levels, and regular interactions.

Eric Enge’s recent Search Engine Watch post, “Social Signals & SEO: Focus on Authority," discusses the importance of having an authoritative person in your space share your content and also the importance of building your own authority at the social network level.

Grow Your Network

Make an effort to network with others in your industry in an attempt to build your site authority. Interact with them through social media by retweeting their status messages, adding them to Twitter lists, engaging on their Facebook Pages, adding them to your circles on Google+, bookmarking some of their blog posts, and commenting on a few posts too.

The old adage “do unto others” applies here. You’ll slowly see them do the same for your content and messages.

Quality

It may seem tempting to send out 40 tweets in a day and 10 Facebook status updates a week, but quality over quantity is always best. Develop a keen eye for quality and think hard about how your brand will be perceived if you tweet, post, write, or comment.

Offer Your Help



Monitor all the areas where your brand can offer up help to people asking questions or seeking information. Track long tail search terms that are frequently asked questions in your industry – use Google Alerts, Twitter Search, and inboxq.com.

Have FAQs sent to a team e-mail address and respond to them as applicable. You’ll find that many online users will ask questions or ask for help through social media. Be there to help answer their questions and you’ll find that your perceived expertise and authority will only grow over time.

Conclusion

Building your website’s authority requires a well-rounded approach and having a feel for what you should do within the social realm is important. The above tips can help you realize the path you should head down in your journey to becoming an authority online.

Don’t forget the other areas required to build authority, however, which are showcased in the below graphic. All efforts together create a working model for how you can succeed in the authority building game.

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