How To Build An Authority Site (MeetUp Talk)

Every now and again I speak at SEO Conferences or events.

Here are some of the events I’ve spoken at over the years.

It’s something I enjoy and really recommend that you get involved in speaking because it does expand your network and profile.

Presentation Contents

I gave this talk on Wednesday, September 14th, 2022 for the Hong Kong WordPress Meetup group.

I spoke at the WordCamp event way back in 2019 so it was nice to reconnect with the organizer, Ivan So, and I recognized some of the attendees.

In the talk, I covered how I built two niche-specific Authority Sites. The sites that I built (mostly) dominate their respective niches and were built using WordPress and several plugins. The important thing to note about my style of building authority sites (or attempting to!) is that I create directories that Google seems to like.

The plugins I used to build the two examples of authority sites listed in my presentation are:

• WordPress Pods (for custom post types)
• All Import Pro

Some people prefer to use Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) over WordPress Pods, but I prefer Pods because it also creates the URL slug for the Custom Post Types whereas I believe that you need another plugin if you use exclusively ACF.

Anyways, the process that I dive into during my presentation is as follows:

1. Scrape Google Maps using a tool like Phantombuster (which I love!);
2. Check and clean up the data;
3. Upload the CSV data into a pre-formatted WordPress installation (and match with the WordPress Pods fields)
4. Tidy up!
5. Consider content clustering (using a tool like Keyword Cupid)
6. Start backlinking

The Video (45 Mins Long)

The recording is 45 minutes long and I cover most items.

I give a whistle-stop guide on my process that in all honestly really covers the basics.

Other Thoughts

When it comes to building an authority site, one thing is clear to succeed: do something you are passionate about! If you are not passionate about it then you’ll never get around to updating the site and giving it the TLD that it needs.

Keyword research is obviously just as important, and I cover a more in-depth guide on that here.