SEO Authority Building Strategy

A strategy used by NerdWallet and other successful content sites to build domain authority and monetize effectively through strategic link building and content creation.

Core Strategy

• Create many high-quality articles that get backlinks from reputable sites
• Focus monetization on a few key "money pages"
• Build overall domain authority through content network
• Drive traffic to money pages through internal linking

Key Money Pages

• Focus on high-value search terms (e.g. "best credit card")
• One page can generate majority of revenue
  • NerdWallet example: Single "best credit card" page generated $40M of $45M revenue
• Expand to related terms over time:
  • "Best credit card for students"
  • "Best first time credit card"
  • "Best credit card for fixed income"

Link Building Approach

• Write articles that attract links from high authority sites
  • Target links from sites like Business Insider, USA Today
• Use those articles to build domain authority
• Link back to money pages from high-authority content
• Goal is to rank #1 for key money terms through accumulated authority

Content Strategy

• Create content that naturally attracts backlinks
• Focus on quality to earn links from reputable sources
• Use content network to distribute authority to money pages
• Diversify content topics while maintaining focus on core monetization

Implementation Tips

• Start with one main money page to perfect approach
• Gradually expand to related terms once successful
• Maintain high content quality to earn legitimate backlinks
• Be patient as domain authority builds over time
• Keep monetization focused rather than spread thin

The key insight is separating content for link building from content for monetization, while using the former to boost the latter's search rankings.