In marketing, the term “brand” refers to the social value of something i.e., a company. Branding is crucial in business because it dictates how consumers perceive your products or services. In simple terms, products or services of well-known brands are perceived to be better than those of lesser-known brands.

What is Brand Authority? What is Brand Trust?

Brand authority can be defined as the trust levels attached to a brand. Brand authority compares your brand with others in your niche, making it the reputation earned with respect to your competitors.

Well-known brands in a certain industry, such as real estate companies, are said to have a high brand authority, while lesser-known brands are said to have a lower brand authority. However, in some cases, brand authority can transcend niches.

What is Authority Branding?

Authority branding or authority marketing are branding and marketing efforts specifically meant to create brand authority.

How Do You Build Authority In 5 Easy Steps

Since having a high brand authority means your potential and existing clients will trust your products or services more than your competitors’, how do you build your authority? Let’s delve into the 5 main aspects to focus on in authority marketing to find out.

1. Authority Content

How do you get existing and prospective customers to trust your brand more than your competitors’? Well, we suggest you first focus on creating authority content. Let’s say you are trying to launch your business’s website but realize the competition is steep in your niche, and your competitors are all ready to go neck to neck with you the second you are open for business. What can you do to make a dent in the competition?

A good first step would be to focus on creating authoritative content!

Authoritative content helps you gain attention and trust over time. Authority content is engaging, informational, and trustworthy. It is meant to benefit your ideal clientele. For instance, it can be great blog posts, website content, or any other type of content that helps your clients solve a specific problem.

However, you need a concrete content strategy to be able to create authoritative content. Authority content varies depending on a wide range of factors, from the niche in question to what your competitors are already doing online.

Creating Authoritative Content

When building brand authority online, you can’t ignore the power of Google. Over 90% of all internet users globally go to Google to look for information and products/services to buy. Even if they find information or discover products/services elsewhere, they’ll probably head over to Google to do more research.

Google is, therefore, critical when creating authoritative content. You need to begin by asking yourself who your competition is on Google and what they have done to rank high.

A simple search can help you discover your competition. For example, let’s assume you are a real estate agent or developer in Los Angeles, a simple search on Google will reveal other real estate agent content including agents and developers like yourself with an online presence. Keyword research will help you discover the keywords those agents or developers have used to rank high on Google. You can then start crafting a content writing strategy around those real estate keywords. Keyword research is an essential step in a well-rounded SEO strategy, which is a very successful method of increasing a business’s online presence.

To get the best outcome, the focus should be on content that offers more value than your competitors. You can start by creating longer and more in-depth content depending on your industry. Writing blogs explaining certain aspects of your work or niche will also translate into useful content, which will help boost your authority. This content strategy should be duplicated for all your major keywords, and soon enough, organic traffic will begin flowing to your site. For example, if you are a dentist, creating useful and informative content around specific dental services will help, such as explaining what is the process of teeth cleaning, how dental implants work, etc.

This is obviously oversimplified. To do this effectively, you need some expertise in SEO and related subjects. Alternatively, you can seek help from a full-service SEO agency that can create a concrete content strategy and execute it systematically for you.

2. Industry Authority

Authority content will help your brand gain authority on search engines since it’s among Google’s most important content ranking factors. However, you’ll need to position your brand as an industry leader to boost brand authority further. How do you do this?

It’s one thing to rank highly within your niche (locally) and another thing to rank highly on a city or national level. You also need a long-term strategy to boost industry authority. Industry authority isn’t gained overnight. It takes months to years of consistent work to become an industry leader.

For instance, you’ll need plenty of industry-specific high-quality content to be perceived as a leader. Ideally, you need to do more in content quality and quantity within your industry. It also helps to do guest posts for high-authority sites.

In case you are wondering why it matters to have industry authority, well, you’ll have an entire community “at your disposal” and the opportunities that come with that. Having potential buyers of your products or services focused on you and trusting you means you’ll have an easier time selling to them. Your network will also grow effortlessly.

3. Niche Authority

We’ve discussed the power of creating authoritative content and strategically placing your brand as an industry leader. What about niche authority? Is it more important than industry authority when building a brand? Should you choose one over the other or target both for better results? Let’s begin by differentiating industry authority from niche authority.

Niche Authority vs. Industry Authority

Industry authority is simply the credibility an organization or a person can have in a certain industry. This authority is earned over time via knowledge, experience, and contribution towards an industry. An industry authority is sought after to offer their opinions or advice on industry matters.

• Industry authority is about becoming an industry expert, which involves offering a wealth of information on broad topics.
• It goes beyond keyword research and competitiveness.
• Sites seeking industry authority will require strategies like thought leadership and link-building to establish high domain authority.
• The goal is to enhance familiarity and visibility within a larger audience.

Niche authority, on the other hand, is industry authority on a smaller scale within an industry. In simple terms, the scope is narrower. For instance, B2B can be an industry, B2B e-commerce would narrow it down, and a B2B e-commerce platform with payment terms offerings would be the niche. Niche authority requires a deeper and more specialized expertise.

• Niche authority is about answering the needs of a specific predefined target audience interested in a specific topic.
• This requires rigorous keyword research and content creation around those keywords.
• Expertise in SEO is also critical to gaining niche authority and generating lots of search engine traffic.
• Niche authority takes less time to gain than industry authority.
• However, in the long term, the power of industry authority can’t be overlooked.

Which One Should You Choose? Niche Authority or Industry Authority?

We recommend you consider your goals and the size of your business first. If you wish to be an industry expert, you should focus on industry authority. If your goal is gaining a loyal following among people interested in a very specific service/industry then it’s better to focus on niche authority.

Regarding the size of a business, startups or small to mid-sized businesses are better off starting with niche authority and slowly making the transition to industry authority if they are interested. Established businesses can seek industry authority directly.

4. Branding a Community

Content, niche, and industry authority aside, a strong brand also needs a community behind it. How do you build a community around your brand, and how does this boost brand authority? One of the best ways to market your company is by building a community around your brand through social media marketing.

Social media creates an open space where people who love your products or services can connect with you and each other. A positive community around you will maintain brand authority over a longer period. However, establishing a social media community around your brand takes time and expertise.

Using user-generated content can also grow the number of loyal customers and increase brand authority. User-generated content can include positive reviews from customers, content like photos, or social media posts that act as social proof that you have great products/services. This kind of content can be used in overall content marketing strategies to establish trust and influence others to join your community.

Turning existing customers into your brand ambassadors can also increase customer loyalty and build a community around your brand. This can be done via strategic website design and development efforts like building a custom site that matches your branding and including affiliate or ambassador programs. Such programs give existing customers incentives to promote your products and give them a sense of ownership of your brand.

You could also offer free resources like eBooks and newsletters and use this as an opportunity to build an email list. Branding a community is an extremely effective way of retaining and growing a following.

5. Branding in the Age of Social Media

Lastly, you need to seriously think about how to use social media to build your brand and brand authority. Social media allows you to share the content you create, reach a larger target audience, and build trust. Social media also helps to engage with the target audience.

However, for content to be shareable, it must meet the original content and quality threshold. Creating high-quality relevant content is the best way to ensure the content engages, helps, and spreads. Your content creation process also needs to be consistent for your brand to remain in the minds of your existing and target audiences. Consistent quality also builds trust. The general consensus is that video content is now the preferred media format for social media, so creating reels or other quick and visually appealing types of posts will be a great way to engage your audience.

To get a head start when building a brand on social media, you may need to use social media ads. For instance, Facebook ads are great for highly targeted branding campaigns.

Overall, the best way to unify your social media efforts and ensure you are tackling the subject from every possible angle will be to have a solid social media strategy that takes into account your goals, budget, target audience, industry trends, and more. With a concrete plan in mind, social media can be a great ally to position your brand within the industry.

How to Measure Brand Authority

We’ve looked at effective ways of boosting brand authority in 2023 and beyond. However, how do you measure your efforts? How do you know you are succeeding? The size or influence of a brand seems like an immeasurable metric to many but luckily, this is far from true.

There are several ways of measuring brand authority. They involve the following metrics;

• Brand impressions: This metric measures the number of times your brand shows up in front of a target customer. They may not buy anything but they will have seen your product/service on their screen. Brand impressions can be viewed using tools like Google Search Console that can show keywords containing your brand. If you are running Google Ads, impression data is provided.
• Brand searches: This metric shows searches on search engines like Google that have been used to discover your company or your products/services. Google Search Console offers such data.
• Social reach and count: This can be measured by the number of followers and engagement across social media platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, and others). A higher number of followers and engagement indicates high brand authority.
• Google alerts: You can also set alerts to inform you every time your brand appears online in posts, reviews, etc.
• Brand authority tools: You can also use brand authority measuring tools that offer a more holistic and effective way of measuring. One such tool is Moz.com’s brand authority metric.

Moz’ Brand Authority Metric

The Brand authority metric measures brand authority, brand salience (top-of-mind awareness), and brand value. This tool is powered by Moz’s industry-leading search data. The tool quantifies the strength of a brand with a score (out of 100) with respect to how your brand associates with consumers and search engines. Simply enter your site URL and analyze.

Results include a visualization of how your brand stacks up against competitors. You also get to discover your strengths, assess opportunities for growth, measure the impact of efforts like PR, and more. You can try the tool for free to gain insights on improving your SEO, among other critical brand authority-building factors.

Wrapping up 

Brand building isn’t wishful thinking or hand-waving. Brand authority or authority marketing has a real impact on your business. It’s an important part of building trust and increasing revenue. The higher your brand authority, the easier it will be for you to gain the attention and trust of potential clients.

We’ve covered the most important steps to boosting brand authority. Simply create authority content, establish authority (niche and industry), create a community around your brand, and lastly, utilize the power of social media. We hope this guide gives you the tools to attempt this process on your own but, if you find it to be challenging or time-consuming, consider hiring some extra help. We happen to be experts in branding and digital marketing, so we’d be glad to give you a hand in this very necessary process.

Book a free consultation with Nomadic Advertising, and let’s help you in your realtor digital marketing journey. We can craft a real estate digital marketing strategy or any other online marketing strategy in various industries.