[Video] What is a Self Reinforcing Authority (and a Self Reinforcing Market Position)?


Video Summary:

Some documents and websites build self reinforcing authority that make them hard to beat for their targeted search terms. This video explains how that works and gives examples of some self reinforcing market authorities, as well as tips on how to make these types of sites and pages.

Resources Mentioned in the Video:

Examples of Self Reinforcing Authorities From This Video:

  • us debt clock

  • xe currency converter
  • search engine history
  • search engine ranking factors
  • black hat seo
  • seo code of ethics
  • seo today / search engine watch

Things I Should Have Mentioned That I Forgot:

  • Your title is important because most people will reference your document by its title.

  • Statistics, standards, and scientific sounding things are easy to become self reinforcing powerhouses, especially if they feed into the ego of the target audience.
  • If you get large media coverage of your idea leverage it to get more coverage. Show it off to seem exceptionally legitimate and trustworthy.
  • US News and world report ranks colleges, and is a great example of a self reinforcing authority.
  • Common ways to undermine authority that may prevent a site or article from becoming authoritative.
  • If someone has an authoritative idea in another market, but nobody has applied it to your market that may present an eay oppurtunity.
Published: February 7, 2007 by Aaron Wall in videos

Comments

February 7, 2007 - 2:10pm

Nice video, I especially enjoyed the blackhat SEO example/

February 7, 2007 - 2:37pm

Interesting video. Basically comes down to one thing - fantasic content that people will link to.

Alex
February 7, 2007 - 2:46pm

Aaron

Beautiful.

Don't let anyone tell you that you're not a good kid :)

Regards

Alex

February 7, 2007 - 3:08pm

Thanks for that Aaron, a great introduction to how sites rank well and how to write content people will want to link to.

Good little tip in the article, the title is the most critical part of any page - and the hardest thing to write.

February 7, 2007 - 3:52pm

Good vid. Creating good content yeah yeah.. I like that somebody who knows his stuff is getting out there and providing some commentary, even if it is still relatively basic.

I look forward to number 2.

February 7, 2007 - 3:53pm

Well done and I like how you also mentioned a time or 2 that it can be quite some time to get those links and attain the authority status that people are looking for.

One suggestion, the gain on your mic could be adjusted, it was a little too loud. Other than that, excellent.

February 7, 2007 - 8:58pm

The video came out well Aaron. I agree with Michael on the mic settings, but otherwise it was really well done.

With self-reinforcing authority pages it obviously helps to be the firs to a given market or set of keywords. How well can a newer site that lacks overall authority get one of these pages initially to the top so it can reinforce itself.

Take the currency converter and redoing it with Ajax and creating something that is really unique and easy to link to. How likely is it that the new improved converter could get a top ranking to get the exposure needed to have it be self reinforcing?

Would you need to create that initial push to gain the visibility where it would attract link on it's own?

I assume there's a tipping point in this kind of thing where you do need to market your content till it reaches that point where it becomes self reinforcing and can market itself.

And again the video came out well. I'm looking forward to the next one. Watch the stuff with the mic, but you come across well spoken on the audio and I think they'll make a nice companion to the usual typing..

February 7, 2007 - 10:13pm

Another reason why link bait, quality content and a great domain name name are key.

Interesting post and I will most likely place this in my roundup Aaron!!

Thanks,

Joe Whyte

February 7, 2007 - 11:32pm

Interesting post. I agree with Michael in that there is some tipping point involved here. It all comes down to quality. This is true whether it's an article, product or service. If people like what you have to offer they will talk about it, recommend it to their friends and link to it.

Dabo
February 8, 2007 - 3:22am

Aaron - the video is definitely valuable, but I have to mention the delivery. Namely, the audio could certainly be better. This is the second video I've seen (and heard) that could have been much better... Maybe you need a good mike!

Keep up the good work though.

February 8, 2007 - 4:42am

You are the man. Great video and another reason why this blog is number one. I like the presentation and have also no problem with the audio part.

Hope you do some more videos in the future.

February 8, 2007 - 8:43am

Any chance you can post that in a format fit for download? Or perhaps use a different sharing platform, GVideo doesn't allow download in some countries including China where I live. Youtube doesn't discriminate based on country yet.

I've had the same problem with matt cutts vids and some of the recent SEO Moz Vids. The latter just download slow for me and the former tells me that GVideo China is Coming soon.

Blazin
February 8, 2007 - 11:22am

ya its da bomb , can you drop some videos about how to do keyword research ok peace !

February 8, 2007 - 1:25pm

Good effort. One suggestion for next time: keep the microphone further away from you when you speak into it. Looking forward to the next one!

February 8, 2007 - 5:24pm

Aaron, great information thanks. Great content and a great site is important, but how to be remarkable? I guess we have to find the clue to understand the Online Market, just like you have. We have to find what is it exactly we need to do, we need to be ahead of the game and be in the right places and take the right actions.

February 8, 2007 - 7:01pm

Hi Aaron,

Awesome article - I was inspired by your last post and got the camtasia trial a few days back and have been using it very successfully (would love to show you my efforts).

Anyone can create SRL's if they have unique content. I started doing this by offering cut and paste database driven graphics for webmasters and have built up a hek of a lot of links. If you do this, make sure you have included proper alt text.

SLRs can be created by using Google Gadgets as well . I created the following gadget purely to see how many links I would get: lottery gadget without promoting it.

There is a stats button on the gadget which will show pages linking to it (web & locally) and the amount of views it has had - currently around 176,000 views in the last couple of months (its not 100% perfect but slapped it together as I thought it was a good idea).

Good article suggestions as always.

- Brendan

September 2, 2007 - 5:30pm

Aaron,

Excellent article on a topic I had never really thought about. It makes me wonder about the future of SRAs in the search engine industry - will future Web 3.0 or 4.0 start to move authority away from the internal rankings, say, of Google and Yahoo and more toward external rankings.

I'm going to have to ponder this for a while - thanks for the ideas!

Sincerely,

Don James, The Agile Marketer

ramdayaly
December 5, 2007 - 7:44am

Dear Aaron,

Your all articles are great, I think it helps lot of seo's to promote there website in better way by using diffrent suggetions given by you, Thanks for such a nice article

December 5, 2007 - 1:58pm

Glad you like it ramdayaly. :)

Webwork
March 12, 2008 - 2:54pm

[quote]Statistics, standards, and scientific sounding things are easy to become self reinforcing powerhouses, especially if they feed into the ego of the target audience.[/quote]

LOL. So, what you're saying is that SEOs, SEMs and pretty much anyone else needs to consider the methodology known as "appealing to the base"?

I thought only republicans and democrats did that? :-P

March 12, 2008 - 4:10pm

I think, as early studies on political blogs have shown, that self-selection bias is going to be REALLY big across the web. And I seriously doubt that the borders are at political topics...there is going to be a matching (near) truth for every search and idea.

Writing a site about SEO and seeing how many people blindly hate it (for business or strategic reasons) it makes me appreciate that it is just easier to cover a topic that is loved from an angle that is loved than to compete against market forces. Why not let the market work for you rather than against you? Appeal to their beliefs and worldviews.

My next site will be "you are loved by all and how to love yourself (by linking to me)" :)

ninja suggest
January 29, 2019 - 7:59pm

Great stuff1 Thanks for post:)

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