When you’re in the SEO reselling business, you’re often caught in the crosshairs of two powerful forces: authority and relevance. Both are cornerstones of effective search engine optimization. But if you’re serious about delivering measurable, lasting results for your clients, you’ve got to make a strategic decision—where should your focus lie?
This isn’t a black-and-white debate. The best SEO outcomes often involve balancing both authority and relevance. However, depending on your client’s goals, niche, and timeline, you’ll find that leaning into one over the other can make a massive difference.
So let’s break it down. As a professional pro SEO reseller, what should be your primary focus—authority or relevance—and how do you make that call?
Understanding the Two Forces: Authority vs. Relevance
Before deciding which to prioritize, you need to clearly understand both.
Authority refers to the trustworthiness and credibility of a website in the eyes of search engines. It’s largely determined by high-quality backlinks, domain age, site security, and content quality. Think of authority as your site’s overall reputation on the web.
Relevance, on the other hand, measures how well your content matches a specific search query. This includes keyword alignment, on-page content, internal linking, meta information, and topic depth.
Search engines aim to deliver the most relevant and authoritative content for any query. But depending on a client’s starting point, one will usually yield better short-term or long-term ROI than the other.
Why SEO Resellers Tend to Default to Authority
As a reseller, you’ve likely built networks of publishers or access to high-DA backlink placements. You might be tempted to focus on authority simply because it’s scalable and systematized. Link building campaigns are easy to pitch, easier to report, and often leave clients impressed with the numbers.
But here’s the truth: authority without relevance is hollow.
You can point all the backlinks in the world to a site, but if the content doesn’t serve a searcher’s intent, it won’t stick in SERPs. Rankings will be unstable, bounce rates will skyrocket, and clients will feel the disconnect sooner than you think.
If you’re building authority without relevance, you’re effectively polishing a car with no engine.
Why Relevance is Underrated—And Incredibly Powerful
Relevance is your shortcut to results. Let’s say a client owns a chiropractic clinic in Austin. Getting backlinks from Forbes or a global news site might sound great. But a well-structured blog post optimized for “best chiropractor in South Austin” published on a regional health site could do more for lead generation than any high-DA link ever could.
As an SEO reseller, your clients don’t pay you for traffic—they pay you for targeted traffic that converts. Focusing on relevance helps you drive exactly that.
Keyword-focused content, optimized service pages, and schema markup go a long way in satisfying Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) guidelines—especially the “experience” and “expertise” parts.
How to Choose What to Focus On First
Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you determine whether you should emphasize authority or relevance for a specific client.
Assess Their Current Domain Health
Run a full SEO audit. Look at:
- Domain rating or authority
- Referring domains
- Existing content quality
- Current keyword rankings
- Organic traffic trends
If the client has little to no presence or authority online, you might need to build a foundation of backlinks first. But if they already have authority and their content is underperforming, relevance is likely the missing piece.
Understand Their Niche
Some industries—like finance, law, and healthcare—require more authority to build trust due to the “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) designation. In those cases, building credible backlinks from reputable sources becomes more critical.
Other niches, like home repair or wellness, are more intent-driven. Optimizing for relevance will usually yield faster and better results.
Audit Their Competitors
Who’s ranking on page one? Are those pages backed by thousands of links or just finely optimized for search intent?
This gives you a practical view of the playing field. If competitors rank with niche-specific but low-authority domains, you know relevance is the name of the game. If they all have hundreds of backlinks, you might need to ramp up authority to compete.
Authority-First: When and How to Do It Right
If you decide to prioritize authority, don’t just chase numbers. Be strategic.
- Guest post on relevant sites within your client’s industry.
- Avoid spammy link farms or unnatural link velocity.
- Diversify anchor text to avoid penalties.
- Target linkable assets, like blogs, infographics, or tools—not just landing pages.
Building authority is a long game. You won’t see overnight success, but it creates a sustainable base for SEO performance in the long haul.
If you’re unsure how to get started with white-label link building that works, contact us for expert-level strategy and partnership options.
Relevance-First: A Faster Route to Conversions
Focusing on relevance means you’re digging deep into keyword intent and content alignment. Here’s how to do it right:
- Use tools like Surfer SEO or Clearscope to create optimized content frameworks.
- Prioritize local SEO if your clients are service-based or location-specific.
- Create topical clusters around key services.
- Enhance UX signals like time-on-page, internal linking, and clear CTAs.
You can often drive quick wins within weeks when you hit the right keywords and optimize well. That’s a huge value-add for clients expecting fast results.
If you’re looking to deliver high-performing, fully managed content packages tailored for relevance, don’t hesitate to get a quote today.
Why You Should Ultimately Combine Both
The best SEO resellers understand this isn’t an either-or scenario in the long term. It’s a timeline issue.
- Start with relevance to get quick traction and demonstrate immediate value.
- Layer in authority as you scale, to build defensible rankings and long-term growth.
Over time, Google wants both. You just need to know which to lead with depending on the client’s unique situation.
Think of relevance as your ignition switch and authority as your gas tank. Relevance gets things started, but authority keeps the engine running.
Final Thoughts
If you’re a professional SEO reseller, don’t fall into the trap of doing what’s easiest or most scalable. Instead, do what’s strategic. Focus on relevance when speed and conversions matter. Shift to authority when long-term market position is the goal.
Listen to what your client actually needs—not just what looks good on a dashboard.
Whether you start with relevance, authority, or both, success comes down to strategy, consistency, and integrity. The SEO resellers who thrive are the ones who think critically, measure frequently, and evolve constantly.
Want help deciding what your next campaign should prioritize? Reach out today—we’re here to help you succeed.
Contact us or get a quote and take the first step toward smarter SEO reselling.