Friday, January 24, 2014

I often mention in my previous blog posts that Authority Spy is perhaps the best tool for authority research. But what is authority research and how can we leverage our Internet Marketing campaigns using this method?

Authority Research is a Branch of Internet Marketing

I'm no guru or anything but if Authority Research is a science, then Authority Research can be considered one of the essential components of I.M., together with Niche Research, etc. It can also be a branch of SEO.

In Marketing, we search for authorities of "influencers" in our niche in order to contact them and communicate directly with them, hoping that they might support us in our next big idea as JV partners. We also contact them in order to get known, to build genuine relationships and connections.

On the other hand, we do the same method for SEO in order to rank our sites in the engines by looking for authority sites or high PR blogs that we can take advantage of. How does that happen? Through link building. We outsource people to look for these "authority links" and leave comments on them or at least directly ask for the owner's permission to get back links through guest posting.

The Top 3 Methods

Twitter

You can do this by finding the "authorities" in your niche by searching for the keyword in twitter search or keying in # + keyword to look for trends. Example: #losingweight.

But that's not Authority Research (yet).

Look for the profiles having these terms. Any profile with a huge following + a possible niche site or blog on its description can lead us to an authority. But it will take a lot of trial and error to find the odds. You can get better, targeted results using Manageflitter.


Manage Flitter

Manageflitter is a powerful tool. It helps you look for authorities by searching relevant tweets and profiles, managing your search by number of followers and possible websites within the profile.  This is the second best tool for Influencer Research, if only it doesn't come in a monthly plan of $12. It's cheap, yet again, Authority Spy can be paid one time only. But then again, if you think Authority Spy is not for you, this is my second suggestion.

Facebook

Searching through Facebook isn't as easy as when using Twitter. Imagine: you would need to look for the exact name or key-in "niche keyword" + "facebook" in Google. Takes a lot of trial and error, really.


Google as Authority Research Tool

There's no simple tool other than Google and if you've got a lot of time to burn, then this could be the ideal site for you. Key in: "niche keyword" blog - and you'll find several sites for this query. Then download a PR checker extension or add-on on Firefox to see the PRs for each query. Then, you would need to use other SEO tools to see if they are do-follow or no-follow links if in case you want to use these sites for SEO.

If you think this is your best option, you can hire professional researchers through e-lance and odesk and get this task outsourced.

Outsourcing

Perhaps the easiest yet affordable way to finish your research. There are many professional researchers out there who are ready to help you out. This is important for those who don't want to spend too much time on Authority Research alone. You can find researchers willing to do this task for you for $3 - $10 per hour.

If you're serious with your marketing, you can find authorities in about 5 hours to 2 days, depending on the number of sites you want searched and your purpose. If you're using this for SEO and link building, it may take more time for the researcher to sort out the results and see if the sites have PR, Age and if it's do-follow.

Conclusion

Authority Research is not as daunting as you think, but it is actually time consuming. I personally think that Authority Spy is the best tool for this task because:

1. Searching through social media is time consuming.
2. Searching through Google is even more time consuming.
3. Spending money per month on outsourcing, although cheap, is nothing compared to a one-time fee once you purchase AuthoritySpy.
4. Authority Spy is packed with features for all niche, marketing and SEO research tasks.


Thank you for reading my post. If you're still not convinced, check their official website out:

https://fo123.infusionsoft.com/go/as/sagchiq03/

 


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