Research, thought and content creation

bygpyles

164 followers

7 years ago

There seems to be a lot going on lately on WA (and other affiliate marketing sites) regarding making or creating an 'Authority Website'. Jay's live training last week was focused on it: Advancing Your Authority in ANY Niche

and Kyle had a blog post with his thoughts on authority sites: Can YOU Actually Become an Authority Online?

One of the things that gets brought up a lot is the 10,000 hours needed to become and expert in a given subject idea from Malcolme Gladwell's book Outliers. It seems fairly obvious to me that most of us are not going to spend 10,000 to become an expert in a niche just to start an affiliate website. If you have already spent 10,000 hours or more and are an expert in a particular subject then that might be a great niche idea to base your website on.

But what about those of us, like me, who are not expert on the niche we are looking at creating our brand new affiliate site about? Are we going to just start winging it and writing spam articles to try a fool people into thinking we know what we are talking about just to get a few affiliate links posted? I hope not!

Kyle mentions an article he wrote about Organic Milk that he admits he "didn't really know much about it." How do you think he was able to write this bit of content that is still ranked several years later? He says he created this article in "ONE day with a bit of research, a bit of thought, and bit of content creation."

Research, thought and content creation, that is what I want to become 'expert' at.

Research: using the internet (Google search, forums, Facebook groups, etc.) to find reliable expert data on a particular subject.

Thought: decipher and collate the data that I have collected and turn it into useful relevant information for readers.

Content Creation: write content that can relate this information to my readers in an understandable and concise manner and also link to subject matter "experts" so that the reader can do more advanced research if they like.

I am trying to be transparent so that the reader can trust me and realize I am not just here to make affiliate sales. I really want to help them find the correct information as quickly and efficiently as possible and to make that an enjoyable experience.

I feel that providing this type of well researched, detailed information on my niche site will eventually allow it to become an authority site, with traffic and engagement (like Jay says).

**During this process I am using the knowledge I have learned here at WA to make sure the content is optimized for ranking (so users will be able to find it as easily as possible) using Jay's Blog Post Checklist