As the tidal wave of AI generated content floods the internet, it will be increasingly challenging for people to discover your small business—whether you are a coach, consultant, or service-based provider.
But wait…won’t AI tools make content marketing easier and faster?
Yes, however, AI is also doing the same for your competitors. Some businesses will use that productivity to their advantage and publish more content than previously.
The dilemma? Lead generation and SEO tactics will be even more competitive and harder to make work for small teams. Keeping up and staying in the race won’t be enough. Your business will need to stand out since blending in will certainly mean stagnation.
What will you do?
Now more than ever, your marketing will need to be intentional, smart, targeted, and strategic to be effective and to make the most of your budget!
You need the right content created for the right audience at the right time.
Although AI is changing marketing at a rapid pace, one thing remains constant: to acquire customers you need to build your authority, credibility, and trust with your target audience.
If your business plan includes content marketing, then you’d better be building an Authority Hub to house your content!
Here's one way for your brand to stand out amidst the tidal wave of AI-generated content that is coming.Click To TweetWhat is an Authority Hub?
An authority hub is my term for the home base or central location where you publish your most important authoritative content.
This is content that expresses and shares your ideas, knowledge, expertise, research, and guidance in an effort to build trust, credibility, and influence. (Side note: this content is referred to as Authority Content.)
An Authority Hub is where you publish all of your important content to show off your smarts and make your audience trust you like their bestie. Think of it like your own private digital island where you plant your knowledge flag and claim, “I am the authority in my field!”
An Authority Hub is typically a:
– business blog on your website,
– vlog/video marketing channel on a video platform (ex. Rumble, YouTube), or
– podcast on a podcast platform (ex. Spotify, Apple Podcasts).
“Authority” in the marketing sense refers to the expertise, experience, and skill in a subject area or industry.
“Building authority” therefore means to display your prowess in one or more topics for the purpose of:
- boosting your reputation;
- increasing your influence;
- showcasing your originality;
- developing the trust of your audience;
- establishing credibility; and, ultimately,
- eliminating the competition (in the mind of your prospect).
In my opinion, the best location to house your most important content is your website since you own it. Plus, there’s no content from competitors on your site to distract visitors.
What are the Benefits of an Authority Hub?
With all that you have going on, is an Authority Hub what you need? Here are some of the benefits:
1) Highlights Y.O.U.
There’s no other person on the planet who has your combination of experience, expertise, personality, style, values, point of view, and thoughts. Your Original Uniqueness (Y.O.U.) sets you apart from all others. And, an Authority Hub highlights this uniqueness.
When you publish content that expresses your individuality, you attract the people who are meant to be a part of your audience. At the same time, you repel those who aren’t a good fit with your brand.
In the age of AI, Y.O.U. is an effective way to be distinct, differentiate yourself, and prove that you are human!
Also, an Authority Hub is the perfect repository for all of your important content—content that helps others, displays your knowledge, and doesn’t sound the same as everyone else.
2) Communicates Your ‘Value’
Unless your niche is super small, then it’s likely that you offer something that others offer too. So, why should a potential customer choose you over the others? What makes you the number one choice?
An Authority Hub is a great way to present your value versus the competition. After all, content marketing is meant to communicate valuable information that helps your target audience while leading them to your offers.
Why not have all of that helpful information in one location? Then your audience can see the breadth of your knowledge and grasp your mastery in your profession.
As a whole body of work, the content in your Authority Hub is a powerful asset. It will:
- show off your knowledge and experience
- express your character
- assist your audience in solving issues and gathering information
- guide prospects in the buying process
Together, each piece of content forms a picture of who you are and what you can do to help your prospect.
3) Helps You Meet the Guidelines for Better SEO
If you haven’t heard about it yet, E-E-A-T is an aspect of how people at Google evaluate the quality of search results. (Semrush) The letters stand for:
- Experience
- Expertise
- Authoritativeness
- Trustworthiness
E-E-A-T is not a factor directly in ranking in search engines. However, search engines want to recommend the best information and sources. So, E-E-A-T is an important part of optimizing your content to improve your position on search results pages (aka SEO).
With that in mind, an Authority Hub, by definition, can help demonstrate E-E-A-T. All of that original content in one location in a blog or on YouTube can signal to search engine algorithms that your content is reliable and accurate and that your business is legitimate.
And here’s why an Authority Hub is more important for SEO now than in the past…
As AI writing tools improve, it will be easy for many businesses to create authoritative and topical content in a seemingly knowledgeable manner—whether or not they have that expertise. But your experience is something that cannot be faked!
As digital marketing expert and agency owner Neil Patel points out,
“We are finding a big trend of companies leveraging A.I. technology for all types of content. And in the long run, we believe [Google’s] algorithms will prefer human-written content because it will get rarer. A.I. needs human input and the best form of that is human written content. Hence, we think algorithms will focus on human-written content.”
Once the dust from the AI content explosion settles, an Authority Hub will assist you in outranking the competition and shining as a real human with real life experience.
4) Improves Access and Content Flow
Have you ever found a person or brand online and wanted more information but couldn’t get it? Well, an Authority Hub makes it easy for people to find your content and consume it.
With your best and most important content in one location, it’s simple for people to see what you’re all about!
When you make people work to find out about you, you lose them. People will give up and focus on the competition if you don’t make things simple.
Another perk of making your content easy to find and consume? The Binge Factor!
Binging isn’t only a thing for Netflix. It’s also something people do on YouTube and with blogs.
In the past, people have let me know that they’ve read my entire blog at once! And, from personal experience, I have binge-consumed marketing videos and articles.
If you split up your content and sprinkle it around, it’s more difficult to deliver a cohesive content experience that flows.
With an Authority Hub, you can guide people from one piece of content to another, like chapters in a book. (Ultimately, you should be guiding them to a lead magnet or to a purchase!)
5) Simplifies Content Marketing
Content marketing is a lot of work. But an Authority Hub makes it easier to feed the content machine.
Having a repository of strategic content means you have a plethora of content to pull from to use on other platforms.
For example:
- Blog posts can be turned into audio recordings for a podcast or a radio show.
- Video transcripts can be downloaded and tweaked for SEO and turned into blog posts. The videos’ audio files can be made into podcast content.
- And any of these content formats can be shortened and turned into social media posts.
Create once and reuse various ways to be present on multiple channels.
This type of content repurposing makes multi-channel marketing possible for smaller teams. And, marketing across multiple platforms increases your chances of reaching more people and building your reputation with a consistent brand message.
Plus, your Authority Hub content can be used to create digital products, webinars, eBooks, and lead magnets. You can measure how your content performs to analyze which topics are popular and therefore good to build out.
Even with AI, content marketing requires time. However, overall, the investment in an Authority Hub can be more worthwhile than random publishing here and there.
How to Build an Authority Hub Content Marketing System
When it comes to keeping up with the big brands, you need a sustainable, manageable method for content marketing and management. That’s why I suggest my content management method.
I recommend using a business blog on your own website as an Authority Hub. Then work from there to build out the content in other formats.
Your blog content can then be turned into video or audio files since a blog post is like a well thought out script. Then you can publish your podcast episodes and videos on your website too, all in one location for visitors to consume in the format they prefer.
A big advantage to this approach is the ability to have one piece of content that you can re-use to populate other platforms. An in-depth blog post provides a script for other formats and offers loads of options for social media. And that’s how a small business like yours can achieve an omni channel presence.
This way, people can discover your business on platforms like YouTube or Apple Podcasts, which reduces your workload some while increasing your reach and broadening your audience.
Plus, you always want your content housed on a piece of land you own, and that’s your website!
If YouTube changes its algorithm or Instagram de-platforms you, you’ll still have your website.
What About a Video First Approach?
Yes, you can start with a video and turn that into audio and text files.
However, in my experience, videos often ramble and focus less on SEO. They work fine for audio but not as well for blog posts.
And blogging is still one of the most effective tactics to get discovered organically online through search engines. Period. I know, I know…blogs are old school! But, text makes for great SEO. 🤓
Sure, people love watching videos. And videos are likely better at conversion. But blogs still matter to your position on search pages. (Though together, blog posts and videos are very powerful!)
Is an Authority Hub Right for a Small Business?
There are different ways and reasons to use content to attract customers. So, an Authority Hub isn’t for all businesses. It may not be a marketing strategy you can support due to resources. And, it may not align with your goals. Heck…it may simply not be a necessity!
Here are a few things to consider about an Authority Hub and content marketing.
1) Does an Authority Hub Align with Your Goals?
What are your business goals and content goals? What strategies and tactics are you using to generate leads? Always choose the marketing approaches that support your goals!
If you’re having success at acquiring customers and clients through networking or referrals, then you may not want to branch out into content marketing.
But, if you are creating content, then I recommend you consider this approach.
2) Is There Room in the Budget?
As a busy business owner or solo marketer, your priority task list is fairly full. Content marketing is likely not at the top. So, you’re going to need help, especially if marketing is not your jam. And, that requires hiring help or delegating to a team member.
You can start content marketing for little to no extra cost. But, eventually there will probably be an investment necessary—even if that investment is only for tools and apps.
So, consider your budget and decide if the money is there and if an Authority Hub is how you want to use it.
3) Do You Have the Expertise?
Successful and profitable content marketing requires knowledge and experience. It’s much more complex than writing a few blog posts, recording a few videos, and done! There’s much involved, such as:
- Choosing the right content topics
- Writing /creating content
- Optimizing for search/SEO
- Creating images
- Managing the tech aspects
And that’s the short list!
If you’re not a content marketing professional, then you’ll need to learn and invest in trial and error. That still won’t replace the experience of a professional.
Plus, is marketing where you should be spending your time? My guess is that you have more important activities that demand your attention. Leave the marketing to a team member or outsource it.
4) How Much Time Do You Have?
Content marketing is more of a long term strategy. Even with the help of AI tools, it takes time to create content. And, it can take months to get results unless you’re paying to promote your content.
So, consider your timeline, business goals, and bandwidth.
Instead of creating an Authority Hub, you may opt to create a few very strategic, goal driven pieces of content and run ads to them. Chris von Wilpert is known for this, so check out the Content Mavericks website if you want to explore this option.
Most clients I work with really want to publish video and social media content weekly. So, an Authority Hub system is a good option to support their goals and resources.
Why an Authority Hub is Critical in Today’s AI World
AI is changing marketing and business at an alarming pace. Personally, I find it both terrifying and exciting. We’re living through the next big tech shift, much like what we saw with the internet, the smartphone, and social media.
Soon AI-generated avatars will substitute for humans in videos. And, AI is already providing voiceovers in ads and videos. Things are getting a lot less human by the week. It feels as if we’re moments away from becoming the reality you’d see in a very futuristic movie.
With AI writing tools, there’s a good chance content will become redundant, boring, and quite robotic. I’ve been testing out tools, including ChatGPT, and I see a lot of the same writing for different topics. 😴
This doesn’t mean you should ignore AI. In fact, you’ll need to embrace it at some level to compete and survive. But to thrive, you’ll need to rise above all of that AI generated content and stand out as a human being who has real life experience and know-how.
Success will go beyond humanizing your AI content. You’ll need proof to convince your audience that your business is the real deal. And, you need a manageable approach to content marketing. An Authority Hub can be the answer to both!
Need help setting up your Authority Hub or planning your content strategy? Let’s chat!
So true… folks think they are the only one to know about tools… the problem still remains, you have to still do the work! And while AI can be great, it's only as good as the info being put into it. You know the old saying… "if it's on the internet it must be true" but is it really?
Yes, that’s true…for some reason, many people believe in shortcuts that mean zero work needed. If only! 😉 AI writing tools are improving already, so it will be a hot minute before there is even more content to compete with. Yikes! That’s where the Authority Hub and Authority Content will shine. However, these things do take time and effort! Thanks for commenting, you are the best!