Become an authority in a single topic

Dani says: “Focus on one topic to gain topical authority.”

How niche does that topic have to be?

“It shouldn’t be too broad because then you could write for 100 years and never gain topical authority, so you should think about how to make it more specific.

If you run a bike shop, it could be e-bikes. Decathlon covers all sports, so one niche for them would be bikes. How niche you can go depends on what you offer. If you have a lot of services and products, you can’t go too niche into one really specific topic with your whole website.”

If you have lots of products and services, does that stop you from being a precise topical authority on a topic?

“Yes. This tip is more for small and medium-sized businesses that have specific services and products that can be focused on one topic. If you want to show everything on your website, then it’s really hard. Where do you start? Where should you go? Where do you want your topical authority to be? Do you want Google to just rank you?

Decathlon wouldn’t want to only rank for bikes because there are so many other sports within their offering as well. In that case, it would be too complicated to go for just one topic.”

How do you decide which topic to choose?

“First of all, it should be a business decision. If you decide on something that’s easier to rank, but you don’t have the business for it and it’s not your offering, then it’s a bad choice. Why would you want to rank for something you’re not selling?

When you’re working with your clients, as an SEO consultant, it’s interesting when you come up with an idea and they tell you that they can’t actually sell more of something, which tells you that you don’t want to optimize for it. The first step is always the business decision. What is the business about?

Then you can choose 2 or 3 subtopics to dive into and decide which one you have the best chance to rank for. Of course, some subtopics can just be too hard to start with.

It’s easy to love ranking and bringing in traffic, but if that traffic doesn’t do anything on the website (it’s not converting or contributing towards your bottom line), why are you doing it? With my clients, I always start with the business model to know where they make their money. What are they doing? What are they selling? What is their best-selling product and service?

You can try to rank for anything but, in the end, if it doesn’t help sell something or help the business, you will run out of money to spend on SEO. The goal is to get them more money so they can spend more on SEO for us.”

Why is Google focusing more on topical authority?

“With everything that’s happening with AI, more content is going out. It’s really easy to write surface-level content about any topic, and it’s getting harder and harder for search engines to trust that you have the expertise.

That’s what’s behind the idea of topical authority. You really want to show, on your website and on other websites, that you are the expert, and you know what you’re talking about – until search engines, users, and clients trust you in this topic.

Especially now, with all the content, the web is getting bigger and bigger. It’s hard for search engines to choose what goes on page 1, that they can trust the most. It’s even more important now than it was 5 or 10 years ago.”

How does Google determine that you are the topical authority for a particular area?

“First, it takes time. You really need to show that you’re the expert.

In the Google leak, we saw some things that we can interpret to mean that Google looks at the main topic of your website, then it looks at the topic of the page that it wants to rank and how close that is to your topic and your expertise to decide if it can trust the content or not.”

When you’re deciding on your topical authority, do you look at the SERP to see what exists for a keyword phrase, and then try to create something different and unique?

“I like to start with the smallest search volume. I know it sounds strange for an SEO to look at the keywords with the smallest search volume, but you want to show off your expertise. If I want to show you that I’m really good at SEO, I’m not talking about snippets and H1s because that’s what you can learn from any article about SEO and on-page optimization.

If you’re talking about really specific questions that users might have, and answering the ones that not everybody is writing about, you can show that you’re the expert on that specific topic, not just on the broadest things that ChatGPT can answer.

That’s why I like to reverse the keyword research and start with the smallest and most niche long tail keywords.

I’m obviously doing that strategically. The first thing is always choosing a topic, where you look at 1, 2, or 3 potential subtopics to start with. You can then search for them, because there can be subtopics that don’t have any search volume. In that case, you could write an article about it, but it’s just too niche.

Then, you do the keyword research and the competition research, to see what’s out there. From there, I start with the low-volume keywords and build my way up. If you use a hub and spoke model, when you come to the hub, you have already built so much content around it that your hub will look different from the other ones, so you’re already differentiating yourself.”

How do you determine the type of content that you need to create?

“You should think really widely, and not just about your website. Not everything needs to be published on your website.

Nowadays, if you look something up on Perplexity, it takes all these other websites into account – so you want to show up on other websites. You want to show up on a podcast to talk about something specific around the topic and think a little bit bigger.

On the website, you should respond to what is most relevant to your clients – the people who buy your service or your product. They need to be able to find answers on your website but, with product, you can go out there.

Do more than just one thing. Don’t just put out text, put something on a YouTube account. Put some snippets of the blog you posted on LinkedIn and put a picture on Instagram. Get everything that you can out of your content.”

How does focusing on topical authority help a small brand compete with bigger brands?

“It gives you a greater opportunity. When you’re really small, it’s really hard to get into the SERPs – especially when you think about your topic. If you’re a sports clothes brand, Adidas becomes your competition. How are you ever going to be competition for them or get there? They have a huge budget, and they can just put content out there.

If you decide on a really small topic, you can concentrate – especially if you go for long tail keywords. Big brands don’t go for long tail keywords because they don’t have a lot of search volume. You can build your brand there.

The best thing is, if you get really good at this niche, people will remember your brand and associate you as the expert in this. Then, they might want to just read your content and not someone else’s.”

How do you select long tail keywords?

“You can put shorter keywords into Google and look at People Also Ask but, after about three questions, it’s going to be really broad and far away from your topic. You need to be mindful of the People Also Ask questions.

When I do keyword research, the first half is just searching keywords on different tools, like Semrush. I actually go to the zero search – not just the highest volumes ones, but the ones that have zero searches. I also love to change tools because not every tool has the same set of keywords. I sometimes go on Google Keyword Planner to see a bit more. It can be a goldmine.

Go for the low search volume terms. Then, you have some really specific questions people might ask or really specific topics that could be a real problem that your client has.

Also, if you have already been in business for a longer time, you might know what your clients are asking. What are the questions that they tell you? Write something to answer that on your website because, before asking you, somebody might just search.”

How do you know where you should be engaging on other platforms to find your audience?

“It depends a lot on your business. I have a client in the luxury jewellery business, and the best thing for them to engage with is Instagram because there are a lot of relevant images. You really want to see images of jewellery, so their Instagram is great, but LinkedIn is not so effective for them. You’re not looking for your engagement ring on LinkedIn.

It really depends on your business. Where is the competition? Where are the big brands for your niche? In SEO, where is Moz and where is Majestic? Where are they publishing and what platforms are they using? Where do they get the most interaction as well?”

Are there any metrics that you look at to determine the existing authority of your website in relation to your competitors?

“Don’t just look at specific articles, look at the whole topic. Normally, if you get topical authority and you put more content out there, every article will rank higher for the same topic. You want to have an overview of how the topic is working out, not just some specific articles.

I love to look at brand keyword searches – especially where you have a keyword, and somebody adds the brand at the end. That usually means that they already know you and they want to read your opinion about it and your expertise, and maybe they didn’t find that on page 1. Then they added the brand because they want to read about it from you.

If you get those then, at least for some people, you already have topical authority. That’s a really good signal.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“Stop focusing on high-volume search keywords because that is where all the big brands are going. There’s a lot of competition and it’s really hard to get in there. You should go for more long tail.

What amounts to high volume will depend on your market. In the German-speaking market, 500+ is high. In English, that’s not too much, but I haven’t done a lot of keyword research in English, so I’m not sure.

Dani Leitner is an Independent SEO Consultant, and you can find her over at DaniLeitner.ch.