Authority commands, authority dictates, authority leads the way. There's so much power in authority that no matter how countless of books, videos and articles have discussed about it – no one has yet succeeded in unraveling the 'ultimate guide' to gaining authority. More so, unlike traffic, subscribers or followers, authority is such an elusive, unquantifiable concept. There's no existing way to measure authority other than the concept of social proof (which in itself is also a very vague term).
This guest post has been written by Liane, is seventeen year old blogging tips writer and blog mentor who owns Better Blogging For Bloggers. Her new found hobby though is graphic designing. Read more blogging ideas on her blog. Btw, Liane wants to tweet with you! So don't forget to follow her (@webloggr) on twitter. What's authority worth to your blog? In the simple sense… it means everything.
If you have authority, you get the popularity (and the huge surge of traffic that comes with it). You get the reputation and the allegiance of equally high and respected people joining your league. Last but definitely not the least, you also get the trust – and in the world wide web, trust could mean the entirety of every successful online personality. Oh, did I mention trust is convertible to unparalleled profits too? So, does your blog really speak authority? I have to say the disclaimer first though: there's no such thing as a concrete method of analyzing authority. In fact, that would be close to absurd because as what I've said earlier… 'authority is an elusive, unquantifiable concept…' What I can share to you though are authority identifiers to watch out for. These identifiers are easily recognizable features that contribute directly or indirectly to your authority. With the help of a checks on these authority identifiers, you can perform a self-evaluation of your own authority. Here are the blog authority identifiers Repeat Traffic. You can also probably call these as your loyal readers and/or followers. The reason why it's repeat traffic and not traffic because traffic in its most basic form is a blend of all web activities not necessarily affecting your authority. For example, a blog might have a high traffic due to search engines but it doesn't really stand out on it's own (that is, without search engines). Repeat traffic is a more clear and targetive indicator. Not only does it tell a record of visitors per say, but of visitors whom have developed a form of attachment to your blog… thus visiting again. The power of authority lies in being able to pull back a visitor after it's first visit. This is how you get a chance to establish yourself more and for the reader to create a sense of connection with your blog. Subscriber count. It's an observed trend that people rarely subscribe these days. Although many forms of feed aggregators are present, admittedly, it's quite a chore following content from all over the web as most people just limit themselves to mere 'browsing'. Subscriber count is something you can easily determine so this identifier ought to be simple enough to analyze. The rationale behind it is simple (and I bet you can guess it too). That is, the more people follow your content (and are willing to spend time to hear you out), then the stronger authority it creates for you. Real followers. I have to specify 'real' from the get-go. You might think, 'sure, having lots of followers is great, but how come this has to affect my authority?'. Twitter has thousands of users- millions rather. At the same time Twitter sprouted, so did the huge effect that social media interplayed with our authority. If you think about it, social media in itself is enough to grow your authority (I'm not saying though that you forget about others). But the question still remains? How do you really determine real followers? Well first, be a real Twitter user yourself. The second step is the basic Twitter guidelines of 'participating in the community' and having a sense of 'sharing and communicating'. But where does authority comes in? The answer can be seen everytime you post a message in 140 characters. Ask yourself, how much stir does your tweets cause? How many RTs do you get (without asking for them) and how many people actually click on your links? In Twitter, the response is simple. Either people notice you, or they won't care at all. Authority works the same way. The Mentions. The biggest authority identifier of all. Mentions refers to anything that cites to your name and/or blog. From back links, to borrowing quotes (like my intro about what Brian said), to testimonials and even reviews. Mentions are the key to building your authority. Mentions make you stand out from the rest, and in a higher value, it reinforces your authority all the more. So how do you exactly build Mentions? Well, you don't because you can't. What you can do though is to portray the authority that you want people to recognize. If you want to be the pro, look and act like a pro- same goes for all kinds of authority types. In conclusion Authority is still a tricky topic. As what Brian said 'authority is powerful stuff'- but… he has yet to define what actually does he mean by stuff (because a stuff could be anything really). All we can do for now is to work around the concepts that we can identify and continue doing whatever campaign needs to be done. In the mean time, go and look around for more authority identifiers. If you can give a few more ideas, then by all means do share it. This was the first ever guest post on Cats Who Blog. Did you liked it? Do you think more guest boggers should be able to blog on here?  | 
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