Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important tools content creators use on a daily basis. If you’re a business leader looking to leverage content to solidify your thought leadership, it’s even more valuable.
Read on to learn why SEO for thought leaders is vital to your success and how to optimize your content for maximum visibility.
What is SEO and why is it important for your business’s content?
SEO helps you connect with your audience whenever they perform an internet search. Search engines use algorithms to match your audience’s keywords to your website content, and also weed out unreliable or unsecure web pages. Sites with the best keywords and most reliable information will float to the top of the search results, while content with low keyword density or poor security will fall much lower.
Put simply, if you’re not ranking for the right keywords—or if your website isn’t authoritative and secure—your content won’t appear in search results. For businesspeople, poor SEO rankings could mean the difference between being an undiscovered industry name and becoming a renowned thought leader.
How to enhance your visibility using SEO for thought leaders
Not all entrepreneurs have in-house marketing departments that can enrich their content with algorithm-satisfying keywords and metadata. Fortunately, there are a few tips you can follow to transform SEO for thought leaders from an unscalable mountain to a walkable hill.
Perform careful keyword research
Before you start writing a blog, new website content, or your next white paper, you’ll need to find out what your audience wants to read and how they’re finding it. Learning how to perform effective keyword research will help you understand several key aspects of SEO-friendly content, such as:
- The strongest keywords and keyphrases to incorporate into your content
- Which words and phrases to avoid or omit from your business writing
- Which keywords your competitors are ranking for
- Which keywords you might want to invest some of your marketing dollars in
Your keyword research might vary a bit depending on your type of content. For example, the best words and phrases may be different for a blog, press release, social media post, or business book. The right keywords are vital to enhance SEO for thought leaders, so putting your time and resources toward thoughtful keyword research will help boost your content and connect you with the right audience.
Utilize subheadings and lists
The most talented professional business content creators understand the need to break up their content with subheadings, lists, and images. As you peruse the internet, you’ll no doubt see that most website landing pages, blogs, and other articles have an eye-catching and aesthetically pleasing structure that chops dense text into manageable chunks for the reader.
Including bolded subheadings and bulleted or numbered lists isn’t just for user experience, though—it’s yet another way to increase your SEO. Search engines will recognize that you’ve made an effort to create more readable and engaging content by adding subheadings and lists, and your headings can even help the software better understand how relevant your content is to an individual search.
For the best search results, try to have less than 300 words of text between subheadings. Although you don’t have to include a list in each and every section, adding numbers or bullet points can dramatically improve your SEO.
Include internal and external links
Nothing boosts your thought leadership like the endorsement of a renowned industry expert. Similarly, nothing improves SEO for thought leaders like the strategic use of internal and external links.
Blogs in particular are great platforms to incorporate a handful of links. Tie your blogs, landing pages, and case studies to a few relevant URLs on your company’s website, and when applicable, link to other authoritative and relevant external sources.
Be careful, though, because too many links—or directing traffic to outdated or irrelevant sources—can actually hurt your SEO. Here are a few tips to boost your rankings:
- Link sparingly. Keep it to five or fewer internal links and three or fewer external links per 1,000 words.
- Find recent sources. Never link to a page that’s more than two years old. The more recent, the better!
- Avoid competitors. You don’t want to drive traffic to your competitors’ websites, so make sure all your external links are neutral.
The stronger your web of internal and external links, the stronger your SEO results will be.
Create evergreen content
It’s crucial to keep your website and social media platforms updated, but you should also create timeless content to boost your SEO and thought leadership. Evergreen landing pages and blogs offer lasting value to your audience, and search engines will recognize the high-quality content and the consistent traffic you’re getting.
To ensure you maintain a steady stream of traffic to your evergreen content, update it once per year to keep it relevant and to let the search engines know it’s been recently reviewed.
Optimize your metadata
Most website platforms and hosts will guide you to enter some key information about any new page, blog article, or case study you publish online. You’ll need to optimize this metadata to help your audience and search engines find you. For example:
- Type your primary and secondary focus keywords into your website platform
- Make sure your meta title is between 50 and 60 characters and includes your focus keyphrase
- Craft a compelling meta description that’s less than 160 characters (including punctuation and spaces)
- Choose the appropriate categories and tags for your new content
Strong metadata is thoughtfully aligned with your content and aimed directly at your target audience. And the stronger your metadata, the stronger your SEO rankings will be.
Turn to Elite: The experts in SEO for thought leaders
Even the best business content can fall flat if it’s not written and optimized for SEO. Instead of risking your visibility and authority, let the experts in SEO for thought leaders take over. We’ll create high-quality, SEO-friendly content in your unique voice so your message lands with impact and reaches your desired audience.
We’re here to reinforce your credibility as a thought leader. One of our team members will send you a quick message to learn about your content goals and begin outlining your custom strategy.
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