This article analyzes 5 tips for creating authoritative content for Google from the perspective of SEO strategy by Jaimie Clark. In order to help SEO people think more quickly, not be confined to the traditional SEO methods, we translate and re-presented for easier understanding. Let’s discover together now!
Learn about Jaimie Clark
Jaimie Clark is the Vice President of SEO at Centerfield, having worked at the New York Times in a variety of positions from time to time. She served as an assistant SEO manager, providing search strategy, audience development, and head of SEO for Wirecutter – one of the New York Times’ product-worthy websites.
In 2020, Jaimie Clark created a new twist for Wirecutter by moving the site as part of nytimes.com. This helped Wirecutter double its search traffic within a year.
So how did Jaimie Clark implement SEO work?
- Answer the right questions that customers want.
- Focus on solving problems your readers are facing.
- Suggest next action solutions to readers.
- Bring trust in the reader’s experience right on the page.
In her SMX Advanced keynote, she shared 5 tips for developing authoritative content for Google and searchers, specifically analyzed by VietMoz as follows:
Focus on depth, not width
Jaimie Clark says Wirecutter has a “mile-wide approach” to her own content that shows up in product reviews.
Specifically they created:
- Top-level pages: These are the pages that make the first impression users see, and it is important in conveying important information about your business or product / service.
- Mid-level pages: The page that the user navigates to from the top-level page. These mid-level pages delve into specific use cases or product categories that customers or readers need.
- Supporting Content: This includes blog posts, tutorials, and news. With this content is covered by topic coverage in breadth and depth through answering frequently searched questions. From there link them to other pages so that it makes sense.
Building Topical Authority
Topical Authority is an SEO term that refers to authoritative expertise on a certain topic. According to the Search Engine Journal, it is defined as “perceived authority over a broad or niche group of ideas, as opposed to authority over a single idea or term”. In a nutshell, authority is a measure of the overall quality of a website and is a ranking factor for Google.

Given such a problem, Jaimie Clark aims to have the Wirecutter site own the search results for the phrase “vacuum cleaner”. To do so, she conducted about 5 reviews of different types of vacuums including handheld, cordless, robotic, steam, mounted.
With this approach she is targeting a highly authoritative site for a certain topic namely vacuum cleaners. Objectively understood, this ensures that the cases users are looking for are easy to research and compare them to make the most satisfactory choice. As such, they are looking to identify and fill a content gap around a major theme. This is extremely beneficial for each customer’s certain needs and wants, making them feel the most satisfied without the need to go to another website to research and compare product reviews.
Content with purpose
User-centric, writers need to have a clear reason why an article page is created. In general, the purpose can be 1 or more, but Google also mentions that each page must have a clear beneficial or useful purpose for the user.
To find the purpose of creating a page content, you need to ask yourself questions like:
- What is the main purpose of any page of your website?
- Who do you expect to read the content on this page?
- What are they looking for on your site?
- And what format do they expect your content to be presented in?
Answering these questions will help us discover what to do every day on our own website. That is what Jaimie Clark has conveyed to everyone who has been and wants to improve website SEO every day.
Present your content in the most useful way
After determining what is important that you need to convey to the user, you need to figure out how to present it in the best way. Rather, how you help people understand the content more deeply.
There are 2 types of content that you need to pay attention to:
- Main content: This content helps the page achieve its purpose, helps readers understand the purpose when they come to your page and evaluate for themselves whether it makes them reach the goal or not. That is, whether or not it solves their search intent.
- Complementary content: Content that flexibly navigates the main content, but is not meant to distract the reader when leaving the main content.
Show EAT
Here’s Clark’s EAT approach applied to the Wirecutter site itself:
Expertise
Structured data is added to author pages for the purpose of making Wirecutter content written by experts or enthusiasts demonstrate expertise in a particular subject.
Author pages showcase their personal profiles, including:
- The time they publish an article for a topic.
- Their Abilities
- Why are they qualified to discuss the topic?
- Social media links such as LinkedIn.
Authority
This is shown on each Wirecutter product review content page including:
- Introduction: This section provides the reader with an overview of the research and testing, general evaluation of a product. Which contains a link to the product purchase page to help people easily make a decision.
- Body and conclusion: In this section, visually exploit the criteria and features to be evaluated. This is especially important for readers as well as Google product review updates .
In addition, the publication date of the Wirecutter site is hidden because Clark himself believes that Google understands that even though the page has moved to a new location, it is still authoritative content written by the same people on the web. many years earlier.
Trust
This factor is evaluated through 2 things:
- Accuracy: You can use the update box to determine if something is out of stock or to change some non-permanent information. This helps the page update the most accurate and up-to-date information.
- Transparency: How do you recommend the product? How do you test the product? You want people to trust you, you have to explain why they should need you.
Conclusion
Above is the entire content about tips for creating authoritative content for Google, hope you have gained more useful knowledge in implementing content for the web.