A person is an authority because other people expect to get the right answer when they ask her questions. It’s true on Google just like it’s true in person. If you want to know who is the most important scientist, look to see whose work is most often quoted. If you want to know who is the smartest person in the room, look for who the other smart people in the room are talking about (or with).

If you want your website to rank at the top of a Google search, you need to convince Google that you are the smartest person in the room for your topic. That means you need to make a consistent effort to show up and answer the questions people have on your topic and answer them in a way that is truly helpful and authoritative.

It means that other websites look to you for the authoritative information on the questions that your audience wants to know. In web terminology this is called “links”. It means that you have built information on your website that is so valuable, other people and other websites are referring to your website and directing traffic to it. This is not easy, but it’s incredibly valuable. We’ll talk about link building in upcoming chapters.