How to Build Topical Authority in the AI Search Era (7 Steps)

You can be a strong brand, publish high-quality content, and still not have topical authority.

Just look at Great Jones, a kitchenware company.

Their Dutch oven (called The Dutchess) is beautiful, well-reviewed, and featured in industry-leading sites like Vogue, the New York Times, Bon Appétit, and The Kitchn.

But search “best Dutch ovens” on Google or ask an LLM for recommendations, and the brand rarely appears.

It’s not that Great Jones lacks content or press.

What’s missing is the pattern — a consistent, positive framing that ties the brand to Dutch ovens across its own site and third parties.

Without this, search engines and large language models (LLMs) can’t confidently connect the brand to the topic, so they default to the names with stronger signals.

Many brands have some version of this gap. And AI search has only made it more visible.

The good news: You can build this pattern.

In this guide, I’ll show you how using the Topical Authority Pyramid, a framework I created to turn your brand into the go-to name in your niche.

This framework builds on conversations with Amanda Milligan, Content and Growth Manager at Semrush, and my work in brand positioning across ecommerce, SaaS, and finance.

What Is Topical Authority?

Topical authority is your site’s earned reputation for expertise on a specific subject. It forms when your brand and topic appear together repeatedly across the sources that buyers, search engines, and LLMs trust.

Think about the brands you automatically connect with certain topics.

Like these:

You didn’t consciously decide to make those associations.

They formed because those brands kept showing up with the same message, in the same spaces, around the same topic.

That’s topical authority — and it’s also how search engines and LLMs learn which brands are most strongly associated with a topic.

The Topical Authority Pyramid Framework

Topical authority has traditionally been defined by content volume and breadth of coverage.

Publish comprehensively on a subject, and you’d own it.

That’s no longer enough.

As Amanda explains:

Today, search engines and LLMs look for more than coverage. They look for a clear position on the topic and external evidence that supports it.

To address this, I created the Topical Authority Pyramid:

The Pyramid breaks topical authority into three layers:

Foundational authority: On-site content and credibility signals that demonstrate experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T), and category fit. (Think category pages, about pages, author bios, comparison content, FAQs, customer reviews, case studies, and more.) Still important, but not enough on its own.
Point of view (POV-led authority): A specific, consistent angle that separates you from every other brand covering the same ground. It gives buyers a reason to choose you and AI systems the confidence to recommend you over competitors.
Proof-backed authority: Third-party signals (mentions, reviews, citations, and data) that back up your POV across the wider web. It turns your POV from self-declared to independently verified.

Each layer works alongside the others to establish your brand as the expert in your niche and earn more visibility in search engines and LLMs.

Many brands, including Great Jones, have strong foundational authority and scattered proof, but no consistent POV tying it all together.

Here’s how to build all three.

Step 1: Audit Your Topic Reputation

Your brand likely already has a topical reputation, whether you’ve shaped it intentionally or not.

Audit it before deciding what to build.

Research Your Current On-Site Associations

The gap between what you publish and what you want to be known for may be wider than you expect.

This is something Amanda has experienced firsthand:

The fastest way to assess this is with Semrush’s Organic Rankings tool.

Enter your domain to automatically see your brand’s strongest topic associations, organized by the topics getting visibility.

When I did this for Great Jones, their strongest topical associations were “recipes” and “celebrity chefs.”

Dutch ovens barely registered.

Yet, the Dutchess is their primary product.

And “Dutch oven” alone gets over 200,000 monthly Google searches.

Great Jones has a big opportunity to increase their topical authority for Dutch ovens and convert some of this search interest into sales.

These are the kind of topical association gaps you want to surface in this step.

Two more places to look:

Google Search Console: Go to “Performance” > Queries and sort by clicks or impressions. You’ll see the topics that attract users to your site.
Branded queries on Google and LLMs: Search “[your brand] + your topic” and “what is [your brand] known for” to see how search engines and LLMs describe you

Audit Your Off-Site Presence

Next, review your third-party coverage: mentions, reviews, roundups, and editorial press.

This is where many brands have the biggest gap, and it’s the one AI systems appear to weigh most heavily.

Run these checks:

Search “[your brand] + [topic]” and look beyond your own site: What’s showing? Industry blogs? Reddit? Editorial coverage? Or nothing?
Ask an LLM: “What are the best [topic] brands?” and “Where would you recommend buying [topic]?” See whether your brand surfaces and what it’s associated with.
Check “best of” lists, roundups, and comparison articles for your topic: Are you in them? If so, where do you rank and how are you described? If not, who is?

A quick off-site audit for Great Jones showed me they’ve earned coverage any kitchenware brand would envy: features in major lifestyle publications and partnerships with prominent chefs and influencers.

But when you look specifically at Dutch oven coverage, the off-site gap is obvious.

Most of the top-ranking articles are a few years old (or older):

And the overall sentiment is inconsistent.

For example, in Food & Wine’s Dutch oven roundup, the Dutchess appears under the “Other” section (rather than “Top Picks”) with a caveat about heating issues.

In this Bon Appétit roundup of the best Dutch ovens, Great Jones is categorized under “Dutch ovens we don’t recommend.”

They’re also notably missing from some use-case roundups, like this one from Serious Eats:

In Reddit threads where buyers are actively looking for Dutch oven recommendations, Great Jones rarely comes up.

When it does, many of the threads are from years ago:

Great Jones has real brand equity to build on.

But it’s just not adding up to a solid reputation in Dutch ovens — yet.

Step 2: Choose the Topic You’ll Build Authority Around

You can’t build authority on everything at once.

This step narrows your focus to one topic worth owning based on a few crucial factors:

What drives revenue
Where competitors are weak
Where your brand has room to claim a position

Build and Prioritize Your Topic List

Start by listing the topics you want buyers, search engines, and LLMs to associate with your brand.

Begin with the obvious ones: the products, categories, use cases, and problems you want to be known for.

Then expand with adjacent topics buyers already care about.

For Great Jones, that might include slow cooking, one-pot meals, kitchen gifting, or cookware care.

Look especially for topics where you already have traction, competitors are weak, or your brand should be associated but currently isn’t.

Once you’ve identified 10 to 15 topics, add them to the “Topic Audit & Scoring” tab in your spreadsheet.

Next, narrow the list down.

Not every topic on your list is worth building a reputation around right now.

For each one, ask two questions:

Do you want to own it? Does it drive revenue, support a product you sell, or build a reputation that brings buyers to you?

How urgent is it?

High: Directly tied to revenue and an opportunity you can act on now
Medium: Tied to revenue, but the opportunity or timing isn’t right yet
Low: Worth tracking but not acting on yet, or no direct business connection

You should end up with three to five high-priority topics to investigate next.

Run a Query Audit

Now test each shortlisted topic to see who already owns the space and where there’s room for your brand to carve out a position.

For each topic, run four queries on Google and LLMs:

As you run each query, note:

Which formats show up most: editorial lists, reviews, Reddit threads, brand pages
Whether AI systems name specific brands without being asked (unprompted)
Whether community results show buyers asking for recommendations or comparing options

Record this in the “Query Audit” tab of your spreadsheet.

If a query shows buying intent but the top results barely address it, that’s a topical authority opportunity.

For example, when I search “Dutch ovens” and “best Dutch ovens,” the same brands consistently come up: Le Creuset, Staub, Lodge, and Caraway.

But rarely Great Jones.

And for “Dutch oven for gifting,” ChatGPT didn’t mention Great Jones at all.

Great Jones only appears when buyers already know to look for them.

More importantly, some topics, such as gifting, aesthetics, and non-toxic coating, are not clearly owned by any brand.

That’s where the opportunity is.

Score by Association Strength

After the Query Audit, score your presence on each topic against three competitors on a 0 to 3-point scale.

The score reflects your overall standing across the Topical Authority Pyramid: foundational, POV, and proof combined:

Score your brand first, then each competitor.

After your scoring is complete, look for high-priority topics where you scored a 1 or 2 and at least one competitor scored a 0 or 1.

Those are topics where buyer demand is real, you have some footing, and no competitor has locked it down — the conditions for a winnable position.

For Great Jones, “Dutch ovens for gifting” fits the pattern: high priority, room to claim it, and no clear leader.

By the end, you should have one topic to focus on.

Have more than one? Choose the one closest to revenue or where the gap between your current and desired reputation is smallest.
Have none? Go niche. Instead of “Dutch ovens,” try “enameled cast iron Dutch ovens.” A narrower topic is easier to own and still builds toward the bigger one.

Step 3: Identify Your Topic POV

You’ve identified one viable topic. Next, decide what reputation to build around it.

Your POV is the specific angle you own inside that space.

It’s what makes your brand distinct to buyers, search engines, and AI systems.

Like these brands — same topic, completely different associations:

Research What’s Already Owned

Before identifying your POV, map what dominant brands in your space are already known for.

These are the POVs to avoid. Going after any of them directly means competing for territory another brand has spent years building.

Start with your notes from the Query Audit. The patterns there tell you a lot about which competitors own what.

To go deeper, use the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit.

The Brand Performance tool tells you which associations your competitors are winning across AI-generated answers (and how your own brand compares).

For Great Jones, the obvious territories are taken:

Le Creuset owns heritage
Staub and All-Clad lean on professional-grade performance
Lodge owns value

No brand has clearly claimed gifting Dutch ovens, visual appeal, or beginner cooking.

(Semrush shows Great Jones is leading on design, which gives them a head start.)

These gaps are where your POV lives.

Choose Your POV

Before committing to a POV, ask three questions:

Does it drive revenue or connect to a product or service you sell?
Can you defend the POV with what you already have — features, data, customer behavior, and/or expertise?
Is the territory open across search and LLMs?

If a candidate fails any of the three, drop it. It won’t hold up once you start building proof around it.

For Great Jones, “gifting” passes all three questions.

People already buy Dutch ovens as gifts.

Customers already mention its “super attractive,” “modern,” and “beautiful” design in on-site reviews, which aligns perfectly with a gifting POV:

And no competitor has clearly made “gifting” their territory yet.

Write Your POV as One Sentence

Your POV should be easy to grasp and repeat.

Writing it as one sentence is the test. If you can’t, it’s likely not sharp enough yet.

For Great Jones, the POV could be:

Gifting: Great Jones is the Dutch oven for the milestone moments: weddings, housewarmings, and “I want this to mean something” gifts
Aesthetics: Great Jones is the Dutch oven you give when you want the gift to stay on the counter, not the cabinet
Beginner: Great Jones is the Dutch oven that turns beginners into confident home cooks

Each POV targets a different buyer and a different reason to choose Dutch ovens.

Step 4: Map Your POV Proof Architecture

This step is where you plan your proof — the concrete evidence that backs up your POV — across your own site and the wider web.

You’re not building anything yet.

You’re mapping what proof you’ll need at each stage of the buyer journey, so you have a clear blueprint to follow.

Audit Your Proof Across the Buyer Journey

A POV without proof is just a claim.

To build credibility, you need evidence that backs up two things:

You belong in the category

You’re the go-to brand for the POV you’ve claimed

And you need to reinforce this at every stage of the buying journey with a different kind of proof:

To run your audit, go through each belief in the table and identify which proof assets you already have and which are missing.

Use the POV Proof Planner in your template to record your findings:

For Great Jones’s gifting POV, a quick proof audit surfaces:

Consideration proof exists: The brand has features in the New York Times, Good Housekeeping, and many others, but most aren’t connected to gifting or were published years ago
Comparison proof is sparse: Some decision-stage proof tied to gifting exists for Great Jones, but it’s not consistent enough to increase AI recommendations

Step 5: Build Your On-Site Foundation

Before search engines and LLMs can associate your brand with your POV, you need to establish it on your site.

This step is about building that foundation: the hub and supporting pages where your topic, POV, and early proof signals all come together.

Create a Hub Page for Your POV

Your hub page is the central authority document for your POV.

It defines the topic, explains why it matters, and routes buyers to supporting pages that go deeper.

For Great Jones, that could be a “Dutch oven gifting guide.”

It would link to the Dutch oven product page and explain why Dutch ovens make exceptional gifts.

Supporting pages, such as gift basket ideas, a gifting FAQ, and a report on cookware gifting would also be linked.

If you’ve been publishing for a while, you may already have a page that can serve as the hub: a category page, a subcategory page, or an industry-specific landing page.

Build Supporting Pages

Supporting pages go deeper than the hub.

Each one proves a specific aspect of your POV at a specific stage of the buyer journey.

Go back to the proof assets you mapped in Step 4 — they tell you what you need to prove and at which stage.

Your supporting pages are how you do it.

For Great Jones, the comparison stage is a clear gap.

To convince buyers the Dutchess is a better gift than the alternatives, they need dedicated comparison pages, backed by awards, endorsements from leading industry sites and public figures, and head-to-head data.

Other supporting pages might include:

Dutch oven gift basket ideas: What to pair it with and how to present it, backed by customer photos and a relevant publication feature
Gifting FAQ: Sizing, monogramming, return policies, with real customer questions pulled from reviews
The Gift-Worthy Dutch Oven Report: Proprietary survey data on how customers buy, give, and display the product

Identify what pages you need, and fill out the rest of the “On-Site Foundation Planner” tab in your template.

Structure Each Page for Readers and Machines

Lead with the most important information first — also known as the inverted pyramid.

It makes your pages easier for readers to scan and for machines to interpret.

Then, make sure each page has:

Clear section headings: Labeled so readers and machines immediately understand what each section covers
POV language: Reuse the same phrases and framing tied to your angle throughout
Schema markup: Structured data that helps search engines and AI systems understand your content and context
Semantic HTML: Proper use of HTML tags so machines can correctly interpret your page structure

Link Your Pages

Each hub and supporting page proves something on its own.

Link them together, and you create a proof system.

Follow these internal linking best practices:

Link from the hub to your 5–10 most important supporting pages in the body. Not just in the nav, breadcrumbs, or footer.
Link every supporting page back to the hub. Keep key pages within 2–3 clicks of each other.
Use descriptive, relevant anchor text to help people and machines understand what the linked page is about

Step 6: Create an Off-Site Proof System

A strong POV and foundation won’t get you into AI answers if the association exists only on your site.

This is one of the biggest shifts in how topical authority works, as Amanda explains:

This step reinforces your POV in the places buyers and AI systems already trust.

Start with One Signature Proof Point

A signature proof point is an original, specific story or finding about your topic.

Something others outside your brand would want to reference, share, or build on.

That could be:

Proprietary data from your own sales, customer behavior, or research
A trend you’ve spotted and named before anyone else
A contrarian observation backed by evidence

For Great Jones and the gifting POV, the insight has to tie Dutch ovens to gifting.

They might pull data from their own sales — say, a 4x spike in Dutch oven purchases in the two weeks before Mother’s Day — and turn it into a “State of Mother’s Day Gift-Giving” report.

That report becomes a press pitch to lifestyle publications, a video on their YouTube channel, and a thread on Reddit’s r/gifts.

One insight, multiple placements, all reinforcing the same association: Great Jones = gifting.

To find yours, start with your proof assets from Step 4.

Look for patterns in your data, reviews, industry trends, or customer behavior.

Distribute Your Proof Point

Once you have a signature insight, decide where and how to distribute it.

There are four main buckets:

Brand channels: Content you publish directly to audiences you’ve built: email newsletters, marketplaces, review sites, podcasts, social media, SMS or loyalty messaging, local profiles
Community: Discussions in spaces your buyers already trust, such as Reddit, niche forums and industry groups, social media comments and communities
Partners: Others who extend your reach into new audiences, including affiliates, influencers, retail partners, and integrations
Earned: Third-party coverage you pitch but don’t control, such as media mentions, press features, user-generated content, and editorial placements

For each bucket, identify the specific publications, platforms, or communities where your insight is most relevant.

Not sure where to start?

Run a search on Google or an LLM related to your proof point and look at the sites that rank and the sources that get cited.

Those are the places worth showing up in. List them in the “Off-Site Proof Planner” tab of your template.

For Great Jones, some of that infrastructure is already in place.

They already have the social media following, media clout, and collaborations with names like cookbook author Molly Baz.

What they need is a focused distribution of insights around their gifting POV.

That might look like:

Briefing partner creators on a gifting-specific collaboration, like pitching fresh coverage that ties the Molly Baz collab to gifting
Pitching their Mother’s Day gifting sales data to lifestyle publications already covering Dutch ovens
Reframing existing social content around the gifting angle

Step 7: Track Topical Authority Progress

You’ve built the full Topical Authority Pyramid.

Now check whether it’s starting to influence how search engines and LLMs describe your brand.

Use the “Progress Tracker” tab in your spreadsheet to record what you find at 30, 60, and 90-day intervals.

Foundational Layer: Are You Showing Up More?

Coverage tracking tells you whether your topical footprint is growing:

Go back to your Step 2 notes. How many of your four query types surfaced your brand unprompted? Run them again and compare.

Also monitor pages ranking for queries you didn’t directly target, and rising impressions for queries related to your topic.

For Great Jones, the baseline visibility was weak for many non-brand Dutch oven queries.

Showing up in two or three queries at 90 days — especially “Dutch ovens for gifting” — would be a real sign of progress.

Tools that help:

Semrush’s Organic Rankings tool (the Topics report) for association trends
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: The Visibility Overview tool to see whether your AI Visibility score and mention count are climbing, and Prompt Tracking to re-run your query set on a set cadence
Google Search Console for impressions and queries by page
Surfer SEO for coverage gaps

POV Layer: Are You Being Described Correctly?

The POV layer tracks language. Specifically, whether mentions of your brand are increasingly paired with your POV.

Run POV-specific prompts monthly and check the wording.

For Great Jones, that’s searches like “Dutch oven wedding gift” or “best Dutch oven to give as a gift.”

And when the Dutchess shows up in reviews, comparisons, and “best of” listicles, watch for the language around it.

Is it being called “a great house-warming gift,” “splurge-worthy,” or “the kind of gift that gets displayed”?

That’s the POV landing.

Tools that help:

Brand24 to track web and social mentions
Semrush’s Perception tool for sentiment trends, and Narrative Drivers for the attributes and phrases AI ties to your brand

Proof Layer: Are Others Confirming Your POV?

The proof layer tracks third-party confirmation.

Are media mentions, third-party pages, and niche communities backing up the POV you want to own?

Start with your proof point.

Are others citing or referencing it? That’s a signal your off-site distribution is working.

Then, go broader.

Run [Your Brand] + [POV] queries on Google and an LLM.

Check whether you’re appearing in more third-party sources associated with your POV.

Are buyers recommending you unprompted in Reddit or niche communities? Are your hub pages attracting links from relevant sites?

When your brand appears, is it being described in relation to your POV?

For Great Jones, that might be a gift guide naming the Dutchess as the go-to Dutch oven for wedding gifts.

Tools that help:

Google Alerts for basic brand mention tracking, or Meltwater for a more robust option
Semrush’s Competitor Research tool to surface sites citing competitors but not you, and Narrative Drivers for the Top Cited Domains shaping your topic

Build the Pattern That Wins in AI Search

Great Jones proves that great press and a great product aren’t enough for topical authority.

If search engines and LLMs don’t have clear associations attached to your brand, showing up online will be a struggle — no matter what Vogue thinks of you.

But that’s fixable.

The Topical Authority Pyramid gives you the framework:

A strong foundation that proves you belong in the category
A POV that makes you distinct
Proof that backs it up across the web

Once your first topic takes shape, expand.

Follow the Topical Authority Pyramid for your next topic, claim more territory, and deepen your authority in adjacent spaces.

Do this well, and search engines and LLMs may just start recommending you by default.

Want a repeatable way to monitor your AI visibility over time? Our AI visibility audit guide walks you through it step by step.

The post How to Build Topical Authority in the AI Search Era (7 Steps) appeared first on Backlinko.