Guest Post by: Darrell Lischka

There is so much information online today about the best methods and techniques about building a proper authority site to rank high in the search engines. Part of the problem, are people claiming to be SEO experts, yet when you go and check what keywords they rank for, they are no where to be found on the first 5 pages of Google. So where do you begin? Grab some coffee and have a read as I expose the insider secrets to ranking well in the SERP’s.

The methods that I discuss are for Google. Now some of you might be wondering about Bing, Yahoo etc. Well, since Google is the king of search engines and where most of the organic searching is done, I will be focusing on G. If you want to make money online with Google, then you also need to understand and follow their terms of service. If you try and use black hat techniques to game the system and Google finds out, which they will eventually, then your site and money will disappear with the push of a button - literally.

Many people wonder, what does Google want?

It comes down to 2 important key points. They want to see quality and relevant information for their end users. This is really the challenge given so much data that is added on a second by second basis to the internet. You see, the search engines have to compromise a bit when it comes to giving you and me the results in a timely manner. Most people surfing the internet, want the information yesterday and having to wait for 10 or 20 seconds would be unheard of today. So, naturally Google is not indexing every single piece of data every 24 hours. Now they certainly have the storage capacity to do so in my opinion, but its unlikely given the competition.

What is an Authority site?

Authority sites are essentially what Google considers trust worthy that have been around for awhile. Authority sites will usually contain hundreds of articles over time. Now some of you might Some people confuse this with a niche site. Niche sites usually have 5, 10 or 20 articles around very specific keywords. In reality, you can turn any website into an authority site with enough work.

The Process to Building an Authority Site.

Step 1 - Getting a Domain Name

Your domain name is an important first step in deciding what direction you will head with your authority site. This goes hand in hand with picking your keywords, which is discussed in the next step. Some people use their name or some interesting sounding name that is unrelated to what your site is actually about. I always recommend when possible, to buy a domain name around the specific topic you are generally going after.

For example, if I were going after home based business, then I would try and buy a domain with that term in there. Now you won’t get something like that since its already taken. But with some variations in the name by adding a word before or after can usually work. There are still thousands of good domain names to buy.

One other point about buying a domain name. The search engines like aged domains. The reason is simple. If you have been around for awhile, then likely your website is legitimate. Most spammers will buy a domain for a year by year basis.

If you are serious about your business and hopefully you are, then consider buying your domain for at least 2 years or more. Some people like Matt Cutts who works for Google, have suggested 5 or 10 years is better. I have one site that doesn’t have the term home based business in it, but the site is almost 6 years old. I didn’t understand SEO 6 years ago, so I picked a nice sounding name. However, I can still use that aged domain to my advantage.

Step 2 - Keywords

So you picked out your domain name and are now ready to get some G-bucks. Well this is where the work really starts. You see many newbies will go after big keywords like make money, work at home or travel etc. Big mistake as a newbie and even as a veteran. The competition is very fierce at those levels and the people on page 1 of Google know exactly what they are doing and have the financial resources to compete. So you better have your “A-Game” on if you ever decide to go after the higher end market.

Stick to the lower end keyword selections. For example, if you wanted to go after the travel business, then go and search out a long tail keyword that has the term travel in it. A long tail simple means the primary keyword like travel is within a longer term phrase. It could be something like, “how to set up a travel business”.

So here’s my keyword 101 recommendation. By starting at the low end of searches per day, you can build up authority for your site as you get page 1 rankings. You may pick a term that has 5 or 10 searches a day. That’s fine to start there and work your way up the food chain. Once you rank on page 1, pick another long tail keyword and keep repeating. Over the course of 6, 12 or 18 months, you have built up a nice authority site.

This is why most people won’t ever build an authority site because the amount of work required. This seems especially prevalent with newbies entering the internet marketing game. They see an ad promising instant riches with no work. Trust me, I have been at this IM game long enough to know that easy money online is a lie. Treat it like a real business and work it like a real business.

One other piece of advice to save you some money. There are a lot of people trying to pitch software programs that will help you find the perfect keywords and give you all the necessary information to have success online. Let me tell you straight up that you don’t ever need to buy something like that. Use Google’s free tools because even they can only give you an estimate on how many people a day search for a specific term and they are not accurate. So how the heck do you think someone else is going to have the magic software. Go here and enter your keywords: Google for your free keyword tool and save yourself some money.

Step 3 - Link Building

Up to now, I have covered picking a domain name and selecting long tail keywords with low competition. The actual methods to building authority sites is about writing quality articles for both your website and submitting other unique quality content at other places.

What I specifically mean is that the only way Google will know how relevant your website is, will be by the number of quality links pointing back to your site. Every time you submit an article to an article directory as an example, you are telling Google that your site is relevant for a specific phrase. The more quality links (back links) that you have pointing to your website, the higher in the search engines you will go over time. Some low competitive terms you may be able to rank on page 1 with only a few articles to at the right places. Other competitive terms, you may have to submit dozens or hundreds of articles all over the place.

How to Get Back links

The best places on where to get noticed quickly by G is submitting your unique content to places like Go Articles and Ezine Articles. Those are 2 article directory places that have authority and Google is constantly spidering their content on a daily basis because of the new content.

There are literally thousands of places to submit your content and here’s a few other ideas. Go to Google and search the term, “list of blogs, article directories, ezine directories, forums etc. You will have people that have compiled a list of dozens of good quality places to submit your content to. The main point and emphasis is to submit unique, quality and relevant content. For example, some places like EzineArticles.com will require you to have unique content, otherwise they won’t accept it. Yes, they have staff checking to ensure this is the case.

One other important piece to the puzzle is making sure when you submit your content to those directories, that they are a “dofollow” link. What I mean is that when Google spider bots come along and search the content and links, they will follow your link to your website. You get a credit from Google. There are many places that don’t have this and its called “no follow”. So when doing a search, enter “dofollow blogs” as an example and you will get another list that many people have compiled to help you out.

Now one trick I learned that has saved me countless hours is to go to Firefox, type in “dofollow Firefox plugin” to get a list of software plugins that you can download to Firefox. That way, when you are submitting your content, you can go up into the tools tab, select that phrase that has “no dofollow”, check it off to activate it. When you have it turned on there’s a check mark beside it. When you are at a particular site, it will show phrases that are in purple and a light pink color. The purple phrases mean “dofollow” which is where you want to submit your content to. To turn it off, just repeat the process and remove the check mark.

So there you have the process on building an authority site the Google way. Start by picking out your domain name, keywords and building back links to rank in the search engines. Remember, the more relevant and useful your content, the better you will do in the search engines.

Guest Post by: Darrell Lischka
Make sure to visit his home based business website.