How Building Authority Sites Makes You Rich

by Kathy Burns-Millyard

If you've been marketing online for any amount of time, you've probably heard of authority sites. Many people don't seem to know exactly what an authority site is though, and most have no idea just how much money authority sites can earn over time.

In short, an authority site is usually considered the 'go to' place for information about a specific topic. It's not just a small information site. Authority sites are usually massive - containing hundreds and often thousands of articles all surrounding a specific topic.

Now, some people had a vague idea of how profitable these sites might be a few years ago. Unfortunately everybody was trying to find a fast path to success, so they built massive sites with thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands of pages on them. Those sites though, were pure junk. They usually didn't have anything useful on them, instead they scraped search engine results related to certain topics. Those sites did make nice money for awhile too, but people quickly learned that they were fairly worthless and a waste of time - both from a visitor standpoint and a builder's standpoint.

Something else became quite popular in the past couple of years too, and this technique also tried to emulate a large authority site, but without putting in the time and effort needed. These were article directory sites. The theory was, if enough writers added their articles to your site, you'd have tens of thousands of pages to earn money from with little to no work.

Unfortunately these article sites didn't have the same effect that true authority sites do though, because the content was too broad. Many different topics were covered in fact, and the content on the sites had a wide range of quality too. Some of the articles were quite good, while others were only mediocre. Then there were those that simply weren't good at all.

A true authority site focuses on one topic. Usually the topic is broad, so that the site has hundreds and thousands of things that can be written about and added to that site over time. Authority sites are not just about size though. An excellent authority site will be one which has such great, quality content that people will refer others there for the specific information they're seeking.

And that's the key to making tons of profit from authority sites. When you have a large website with tons of expert, high quality articles, other sites will link to you. Other people will talk about you, and other people will tell their friends, colleagues and family about your site too. Over time, well built authority sites can bring in massive amounts of profit, because they have massive amounts of targeted traffic being sent to them.

Most webmasters unfortunately don't have the stamina to create enough content to create a true, long lasting, insanely profitable authority site though. It takes a lot of time and effort just to create quality content, and when you need to create quality in large amounts, it's a bit overwhelming for most. There are shortcuts available though, such as buying and editing specialized Private Label Articles, or hiring ghostwriters to create your content. Each has it's own pros and cons, so we'll delve into those topics deeper with future articles.