You’re starting a Thought Leadership business. How can you create a website that sets you apart?

Before starting out, you need to see the end yourself. To achieve this, you need to set a goal you want to achieve, how to achieve it, and what you will need to achieve your goals. I love drawing board, sticky notes, and notepads. (It can take you few days of thinking, research and then coming back to collate all the ideas you r gotten) then proceed to the planning stages

In my experience it is helpful to be clear on what you are not, more than what your specific goal is. Specific goal will emerge with feedback loop if you listen to reactions intently. But if you try to be everything your feedback loop would be muddled and it would be difficult to distinguish signal from noise

To be a thought leader you first have to have thoughts that are provocative, original and interesting before you can consider a website. What wisdom and insight can you share that will help your audience address a pain point or fulfill an aspiration. You aren’t a thought leader just because you have a website that says you are. It is about the impact your ideas gave on others and that they see you as a leader.

Start doing research and gain a deep understanding of their preferences, behaviors, and needs. This will involve creating user personas, analyzing market trends, and gathering feedback through surveys or focus groups. By comprehensively understanding your target audience, you can tailor your website design, content, and functionality to better resonate with and meet the expectations of your intended users. This research-driven approach will enhance the overall user experience and increase the effectiveness of your website in achieving its goals.

My goal as a LinkedIn content creator is to provide valuable industry insights, personal experiences, and thought leadership to professionals across different industries. I aim to craft engaging and informative posts that spark conversation and contribute to the professional development of my audience. I will maintain a genuine and conversational tone to connect with professionals and enhance their LinkedIn experience.

Certainly! When choosing a platform, it's important to consider where your target audience is most active. LinkedIn is a great platform for professionals across various industries, as it allows for networking, sharing industry insights, and establishing thought leadership. I would focus on crafting engaging and informative posts on LinkedIn to reach and resonate with professionals in different industries.

As a thought leader, you are expected to have your own professional website. Hopefully your name is available as URL. Personally I prefer Wordpress because it’s endlessly flexible and easy to maintain. But even more important: host your site at a provider that has a fast infrastructure. I recently switched hosting providers and the difference is night and day!

When choosing a platform for our thought leadership website, we prioritize flexibility, user experience, and content management. We aim to deliver an immersive and user-friendly experience for our audience, ensuring easy access to thought-provoking content and seamless interaction. Our platform choice will cater to diverse content formats, enabling us to engage our audience through articles, videos, podcasts, and interactive discussions. Additionally, we seek a platform that supports robust content management, empowering us to curate, organize, and present our thought leadership materials in a compelling and accessible manner.

When designing LinkedIn posts, it's essential to keep them visually appealing and easy to read. I would focus on using a clean and professional layout, with attention-grabbing headlines, concise and engaging content, and visually appealing images or graphics. Utilizing bullet points, short paragraphs, and subheadings can also help improve readability and draw the reader's attention to key points. Additionally, I would make sure to include a strong call to action to encourage interaction and engagement with the post.

I love my websites. But even I have to admit the flow is not optimised for a stranger who knows nothing about my business. I put this here because yes it is about content but the layout is the readers journey. So what journey are they taking? What do they learn first? Where do you direct them next? How many steps do they have to go through before buying? Testing this with a core group is a good idea to ensure you are getting your target audience to where they need to go.

Keep it simple! The layout should not distract from your message. Have someone design a professional layout with colors that fit your brand. You need to showcase your materials, but don’t go overboard. You want visitors to quickly and easily find what they are looking for. The layout of your homepage should be straightforward so visitors can see your services as a whole. Create pages with further details. You should also make space available for e.g. a speaker reel or other materials showcasing your talents. And don’t forget the CTA or call to action: what should visitors do while on your site?

Your layout should be a replica of your product -> a clear and concise story. The layout must highly consider bounce rate and user duration of your top site links, along with average pages per session. These metrics will tell you so much about your layout, copy, and overall UI. The layout must include skimmable copy, so pick a modern layout that’s easily digestible for the visitor.

Your thought leadership content should benefit your audience. Share authentic content in a precise story-telling way to demonstrate your perspective. Write stories that captivate readers. Be creative without losing consistency—all content should reflect your brand's ideals. Innovation within your specialty is key. Content should educate and inform, not sell. Give your viewers useful tips.

Give away the process, charge for implementation. Everyone knows how to do pushups yet will pay for someone to get them to do it. Give knowledge freely and charge a premium to get someone to make it happen. ????

Thought leadership is not a title you give yourself. Being designated or thought of as a “thought leader” by others, requires unique insight and profound, original content. If you are continually quoting Gandhi, Simon Sinek, or Eleanor Roosevelt, you are merely parroting someone else’s wisdom, and hoping to gain gravitas by association. Thought leadership requires unique perspective and actionable wisdom. Display it on your website and your written content and video clips. Be original.

In a professional context, effective content creation transcends the basic sharing of knowledge; it involves the meticulous crafting of material that is both intellectually stimulating and directly applicable to the audience's professional or personal growth. This process requires a deep understanding of the audience's challenges and aspirations, ensuring that every piece of content, whether a detailed report or an insightful video, serves as a bridge connecting theoretical expertise to practical application. Therefore, the key to impactful content lies in its ability to not only inform but also inspire action and foster a sense of community among its audience, establishing the creator's role as a trusted authority in their domain.

Of course! When creating content for LinkedIn, I would focus on sharing industry insights, personal experiences, and thought leadership in a genuine and conversational tone. I would aim to provide valuable information that professionals across different industries can relate to and find useful. Whether it's a personal anecdote, a trending industry topic, or a deep dive into a specific aspect of the professional world, I would craft my content to be engaging, informative, and relevant to my audience.

We will optimize our website for search engines by focusing on relevant keywords, high-quality content, and technical aspects like site speed and mobile responsiveness. Our goal is to improve visibility, attract inbound links, and expand the reach of our thought leadership content.

Keyword-rich titles and descriptions would boost the podcast's SEO. I would also search for similar podcasts' most popular phrases that can be used as keywords/tags. Social media, especially audience engagement and hashtags, can boost podcast exposure. SEO must be regularly revisited for optimization due to algorithmic changes affected by user preferences.

Certainly! When optimizing content for LinkedIn, I would focus on incorporating relevant keywords and phrases that professionals in different industries are likely to search for. Additionally, I would make use of tags and relevant hashtags to improve the discoverability of my posts. By including keywords and tags that are commonly used within the industry, I can increase the chances of my content being found by the right audience. This will help ensure that my posts reach and resonate with the professionals I aim to connect with on LinkedIn.

Begin with comprehensive keyword research, identifying long-tail, niche-specific keywords. Prioritize on-page SEO by crafting unique title tags, meta descriptions, and structured content with natural keyword integration. Commit to publishing high-quality, engaging content regularly. Enhance your website's performance by ensuring it's mobile-friendly, fast-loading, and secured with HTTPS, aligning with Google's ranking preferences. Strengthen authority through quality backlinks obtained via guest posting, collaborations, and reputable directories. Leverage social media and email marketing to promote your content actively, expanding its reach and driving traffic back to your site. And also monitor it.

Apologies, but as a LinkedIn content creator, my main focus is on crafting engaging and informative posts for professionals on the LinkedIn platform. However, I can advise on optimizing your LinkedIn profile to align with your website and drive traffic to it. Let me know if you'd like some tips on that!

We pivot. We change. Our products change. We must change with them. I changed my focus to speaking, so a speaker reel must be added to my website, otherwise what can text tell them about how I speak? Make it relevant and up to date and match the keywords from your LinkedIn profile so there is a consistent messaging between both.

Some of the easiest website updates you can make are: new client names/logos, testimonials, additional work product types, relevant content, upgraded statistics, years of experience, price card rates, and most of all -> Call To Actions. As you (or beta testers) roam your website, identify additional CTAs to add and consider modifying the test in the CTA button. Stay fresh here and continue to provide ways for the user to convert.

Updating our website is a crucial aspect of maintaining relevance and providing ongoing value to our audience. We are committed to regularly refreshing our content, adding new insights, and sharing the latest developments in our industry. Our website will feature a dynamic and ever-evolving content strategy, ensuring that visitors always find fresh and thought-provoking material to engage with. Additionally, we will actively seek feedback from our audience to understand their evolving needs and interests, using this input to shape our content updates and ensure that our website remains a valuable and influential resource.

At last count, 200,121,724 websites are actively maintained & visited (I stopped counting at 198 million). Even if most are not remotely in your category, the net distraction is exhausting. A few things I find always work: 1) write simply, 2) cut the crap, 3) help people always know where they are and how to get around, 4) don't succumb to stock solutions which make you look like everyone else (see above for numbers), 5) honor your guests for coming with a clear purpose, and 6) if they're buying something, make it ridiculously easy. And even if AI was a big help, utilize the human part of AI.

Share Testimonials of Clients. Although this is a no-brainer, but still not emphasized enough. Unless success stories are shared repeatedly, you cannot make a deep impression. Document case-studies with real facts and figures. It will help you establish as the best in thought leadership business and build credibility ??

To me 'Thought leadership' is how do you enable other who are associated with your business. An engaging website focusing on quality contents, meaningful for audience, backed by case studies, creating a platform for your team/audience to think and allowing them to come forward with the knowledge & ideas which is there in back of their mind.

When you are done, ask a few people to visit your website and give you feedback: Is it easy to navigate? What do they think your message is? Are they missing something? Carefully consider their feedback: you don’t have to implement everything the say, but at least give it some thought. And evaluate after one or two months if your website meets your expectations. If not, what needs to change? I update the design of my website once or twice a year so it stays fresh. I also know some thought leaders who keep it the same for a long time. Up to you and good luck!

Your own articles that have been picked up high-tier or trade press should be available under a “Resources” page, similar to a spot for “Library” or a place for “Your Thoughts”. This is the time to brag: use high contrast imagery with each listing -> not just line-by-line Test with Link. And this must be consistently maintained to show your best and current work.