These 4 Mistakes are Limiting Your Thought Leadership Content

Or at least... they might be. Next week, Google will begin a series of “helpful content” updates to address low-quality articles that are intended to rank well in their search engine but are ultimately made for baiting clicks rather than informing readers. By prioritizing content “by people, for people,” Google hopes these improvements will allow searchers to find more helpful and relevant results. But for thought leaders making these four common mistakes, the new updates may end up limiting their reach.?

Unoriginal Ideas

The content that Google’s changes will hit the hardest will be full of unoriginal and inauthentic content. These updates target low-quality content aggregating ideas from other sources but without new insights, particularly impacting results related to online education, arts and entertainment, shopping, and technology. We can avoid getting caught in this trap by ensuring our articles present new ideas and actionable steps that readers can apply to their life, career, or industry. People return to what brings them value, so find a niche that provides value to a consistent audience, offer up more than the same old insights, and stick with it.?

Inconsistency

Thought leaders can bypass Google’s new updates by producing high-quality content, but it takes more than writing and submitting high-quality content to get published and become successful. Google prioritizes “expertise, authority, and trust,” and consistent content reflecting those values ranks better in Search. Start to build that consistent reputation for quality content by publishing through media sites with no application process. Then, armed with a full portfolio of reputable content, pitch to bigger publications.?

Too Impersonal

People want thought leadership that represents genuine expertise and passion, not? content full of philosophical platitudes, business jargon, or advertisements disguised as content. Instead, our thought leadership should express our humanity, focusing on the stories in our experiences — the struggles along the way to our success — so more readers can empathize with our experiences. If they can see something of themselves in our personal stories, we build meaningful connections that inspire them.?

Giving Up

Thought leadership that ranks well with Google requires action, persistence, a lot of work, and tons of nudges, but we lose all we gain the moment we give up. Becoming a thought leader isn’t an overnight process. It may take pitching up to eight contacts to get a single reply. Be patient and stay the course. By taking steps to ensure we provide valuable new insights in our content, we will be able to share it eventually. Study the publication guidelines, know who to contact and how, and follow up regularly.

Google’s new search updates may limit our reach as thought leaders, but only if we let them. People read thought leadership articles to gain industry knowledge and insights, so thought leaders should produce content that shares their expertise to benefit others as an authority in their industry. If we live up to that responsibility, we improve our chances of reaching more people and grow our reputation as industry authorities.?

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Tom Popomaronis is Executive Vice President of Innovation at Massive Alliance, a global executive branding agency. Tom co-founded Massive's Executive Leadership Branding program – which transforms world-class executives into contributing authors at leading publications.

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