Google author authority will emerge as a dominant SEO factor
Search engine optimization is a full-time endeavor. The benefits of showing up on the first page of Google (or any search engine) are clear for just about any business: In real estate, approximately 85 percent of people start their home search online.
More and more, Google is trying to identify truly valuable content. In the last two or three years, social signals have emerged as a new factor in search engine rankings. It makes sense — if people are willing to share the content you’ve created, it must be decent.
Google Plus sharing and +1′s on that social platform seem to have a little extra weight for Google search rankings. But I have no doubt Google is pulling as much data as it can on how things are shared online. It is absolutely using this in determining how to rank content.
What’s next for real estate SEO?
I believe the next major factor in determining how your content ranks will be Google author authority. This has been bubbling under the surface for a while. Google Authorship was the first step in Google learning who you are.
What is author authority? It’s essentially how knowledgeable you are on the subject about which you write.
- Can anyone see why author authority should emerge as a really big deal? If I had to bet on one dominant new SEO factor emerging from 2014, it would be author authority.
- Stop writing thin content. You’re hurting yourself. The days of throwing something up and having it rank are over. Content is no longer king. Great content is king!
- If that means you write three blog posts per week instead of seven, fine. Three great pieces of content are better than 20 thin pieces of content.
- Why? Because those 20 thin pieces aren’t going to rank and are probably going to damage your credibility as an author. Our astronomer would NEVER post something really quick about the heliosphere just to get something up. Doing that over and over would only hurt him.
- Look at the content you’ve produced in the past. It might make sense to go back and update some of that content to make it better. Add some additional facts. Make the content a better piece of content. When you start to realize that Google is taking the entirety of your library of content into consideration, it makes sense to bolster content that isn’t great.
Not only should you share the great content you create on Google Plus, you should take full advantage of setting up your Google Plus profile. Make sure it links to all of the other places on the Internet where you do work.
Take full advantage of it to tell Google as much about your expertise as possible.
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