📚 Related read: Check out our deep dive into Animalz own content strategy.
Did you notice a couple of years ago when tons of well-known companies reorganized their blogs into libraries?(Example: Lattice)
That was because ofthis blogwritten by Jimmy Daly, the then VP of Growth at Animalz.co.
That article shifted the industry's thinking and set Animalz out as the go-to resource for content leaders.That's the potential power of writing thought leadership into your content.
Ryan Law, VP of Content at Animalz, is my guest on the How the F*ckSEO podcast this week.
Any Animalz fans out there will know, Ryan's content is continuously straight 🔥
Ryan will probably kill me for saying this, but he's as close to a guru as the content marketing world has right now.
⚡ New here? Check out our fast-growing library of SEO case studies.
In this episode, Ryan and I deep dive into thought leadership and how SEOs can, should, must incorporate it into their content.
Here's a sneak preview of 1/4 of the frameworks:
We covered these key points:
⚡ We learned the secrets behind Animalz own content strategy
⚡ We learned how Ryan chooses which topics to write about
⚡ We learned why SEOs must move away from the Skyscraper technique
⚡ We learned how the Animalz team defines thought leadership
⚡ Four frameworks to build trust, authority, and conversions
What is Thought Leadership?
Internally, Ryan and his team define thought leadership ascontent that shares an earned secret.
💡 Definition: The term ‘earned secret’ was coined by Ben Horowitz, an American businessman and investor. It is defined as the uniqueness of each individual. Only by being who you are, doing the things you do and no one else does, can you talk about your earned secrets - your knowledge, thoughts, opinions, etc.
In Ryan’s own words, thought leadership boils down to this:
“You are leading front and center with your personal experiences, your beliefs, your ideas. And that, ultimately, I think, is what matters in terms of getting people to buy from you. They understand you, they trust you, you’ve helped them.”—Ryan Law
Ryan notes that this has two key benefits:
- Standing out in a sea of nearly identical articles on the same topic. This could lead to higher rankings and more added value for your readers. Most importantly, your content will also convert more.
- Baking trust and credibility into your brand. Your business will no longer be just a random information source to click away from, but rather a trusted brand your customers (and future customers) can rely on.
Toolkit: Four Frameworks to Make Your ‘SEO Content’ Actually Good
Here are 4 mental frameworks that will help you inject thought leadership into your content.
