How to Build Topical Authority in SEO (With Jacob Clarke, Organic Growth @ NerdWallet)

05/09/23 • 18 min

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Jacob Clarke joined the show today from NerdWallet's stupidly successful SEO team. He helps us define topical authority and drill down into how to achieve it to accelerate growth results.

In SEO, the concept of topical authority is one that's relatively new in our lexicon. But it's one of THE most powerful tools to have in your belt when building an SEO-driven content strategy.

Topics covered: Why prioritize topical authority? Two tried & tested methods for measuring authority. And a step-by-step for building authority.

Key links:

1. Reduce time and improve rankings: Get the ultimate SEO brief template

2. Sponsor: uSerp: ⁠⁠⁠⁠userp.io⁠⁠⁠⁠ for a great backlink-building agency

3. Read this in article format

4. View sh*t loads of topical authority case studies in our SEO case study library

Jacob Clarke joined the show today from NerdWallet's stupidly successful SEO team. He helps us define topical authority and drill down into how to achieve it to accelerate growth results.

In SEO, the concept of topical authority is one that's relatively new in our lexicon. But it's one of THE most powerful tools to have in your belt when building an SEO-driven content strategy.

Topics covered: Why prioritize topical authority? Two tried & tested methods for measuring authority. And a step-by-step for building authority.

Key links:

1. Reduce time and improve rankings: Get the ultimate SEO brief template

2. Sponsor: uSerp: ⁠⁠⁠⁠userp.io⁠⁠⁠⁠ for a great backlink-building agency

3. Read this in article format

4. View sh*t loads of topical authority case studies in our SEO case study library

Previous Episode

undefined - Scaling LivingCozy.com to 335,000 Monthly Page Views with Expert Content [Ash Read, Co-Founder at 937 Media. Ex-Buffer Editorial Director)

Scaling LivingCozy.com to 335,000 Monthly Page Views with Expert Content [Ash Read, Co-Founder at 937 Media. Ex-Buffer Editorial Director)

I had an amazing conversation with Ash Read this week on the show.

For those of you who know the software company Buffer, Ash was their Editorial Director for 6 years. So, you know, this is going to be an episode where you'll about scaling traffic with quality content systems.

Since 2020, Ash has been building a niche blog empire. Starting with LivingCozy.com, which focuses on home & furniture product reviews.

The site received over 335,000 monthly page views in Feb 2023 and earned ~$10K a month this time LAST year.

Expect to learn:

1. Living Cozy's initial content strategy and how it's evolved

2. Three types of content and why they write them

3. Why expertise is so important and how they get it for every article

4. How Ash uses "layering" to ship more content quickly

5. The ins and outs of Living Cozy's content operation

6. Living Cozy's backlink strategy

Sponsors:

1. ⁠⁠Mentioned SEO brief template⁠⁠

2. Sponsor: uSerp: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠userp.io⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for a great backlink-building agency

3. Read this in article format

4. View sh*t loads of topical authority case studies in our ⁠⁠SEO case study library

Next Episode

How Maze.co Built an SEO Revenue Engine to 900 Monthly Organic Sign-Ups (Jake Stainer, Co-Founder at Skale.so)

This case study is about an underdog website.

A new company, launching into a competitive niche and winning some of those most difficult keywords.

Maze broke through on topics like “UX Design” and “UX Design Tools” by focusing on:

Thorough, well-crafted content
Superior UI/UX designs
Scalable link building
CRO techniques

These are the core tenants of the SEO revenue engine that has allowed Maze to fuel its growth via search.

Listen to this episode to find out:

1. The SEO engine companies like Hubspot, MoonPay, UserZoom, PiktoChart and Maze have under the hood, and how to build one yourself.

2. How to pioneer your category via search. Winning growth EVEN when no one is searching for what you do.

3. How to avoid wasting search visitors. Most traffic reads and leaves, not anymore with this 3-step process.

4. A simple yet powerful technique for backlink building that will put you AHEAD of your competitors. Maze did this to beat a powerful competitor.

Note: Got questions? Jake kindly offered How the F*ck listeners a free 15-minute chat to SaaS peeps who wants help implementing this. ⁠Book here.⁠

——

Sponsors:

1. ⁠⁠⁠Grab my SEO brief template⁠⁠⁠ - Drive expertise, connection & ranking

2. Sponsor #1: uSerp: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠userp.io⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for a great backlink-building agency

3. Sponsor #2: Workello: https://workello.com/?fpr=howthefck for a platform that helps scale hiring writers

4. ⁠Read the full teardown here.

5. View sh*t loads of awesome case studies in our ⁠⁠⁠SEO case study library