Thought Leaders & Content Marketing
Consumers are gravitating toward Thought Leaders
Bloggers are the stars of the online world in terms of being viewed as influencers by search engines if they are popular and authoritative enough. Blogging is part of what makes content marketing valuable since effective blogs can create online followings. The reason blogs have become important in SEO is that they represent a chance to bring keywords to life in a unique story.
Blogs vs Articles
Many people have used the terms “blogs” and “articles” interchangeably, but the two are 
very different. Articles are written in a more traditional style, almost like a newspaper story, whereas blogs are more conversational and creative while delivering information that can be hard to find elsewhere. Another big difference is that blogs are written from the perspective of an expert, whereas articles are written by objective observers who can be anybody.
When you think about it, if you’re not getting information from an expert, why should you trust the information? Search engines favor experts because they are better sources than non-experts. The internet is flooded with articles by non-experts who are mostly duplicating information that already exists. Bloggers, on the other hand, offer new information and original perspectives, which are two components of content marketing that search engines reward.
How Blogs Become Big
Big media helps put the spotlight on popular bloggers, but it’s also possible to develop a blog that grows in popularity organically. The main strategy for building an organic online following is the combination of SEO and unique content that can be categorized many different ways. Your blog can be planned out many months in advance based on all the different angles you see in an industry.
When you think of all the different types of people who are attracted to your industry and start writing blogs about the different reasons people use certain products, you can gain acceptance as a leading observer in that field. Once you’ve written about a hundred quality blogs about your industry, it’s likely that your name or brand will be referenced in many different ways associated with the industry in search engines. The more unique blogs you write, the more chances search engines will consider you to be an authoritative expert.
Maximizing Blogs
Not all blogs are successful partly because not everyone is a good storyteller. Certain industries work well with blogging if they are already very detail-oriented. Sharing food recipes, for example, can create endless excitement for cooking fans since there are infinite ways to prepare food. But sharing information on how to operate machinery used in redundant situations is not the best approach to blogging if it doesn’t spawn many different ideas.
Ideally, you want to create blogs that other people share on social networks. One of the ways to make a blog attractive is to start with a colorful photograph, design or infographic. A blog that accompanies a picture and video has extra advantages. The reason you want to make sure the blog has a nice picture is because people see hundreds of stories and pictures as they scroll through their social network newsfeeds, but only so many catch their attention.
A blogger who interviews experts, especially on video, can gain even more credibility. By taking the role of a multimedia curator who explores an industry deeply, you can gain the reputation of a Thought Leader. When your blog becomes what people turn to with high expectation of gaining new information, you have become a Thought Leader, a monumental goal of bloggers. Take the lead in content marketing by reviewing new products and helping other bloggers create a buzz about them.
Ian Conklin is the President of OTR Web, a web development company creating market ready websites since 2000, with locations in Canada, USA, Europe and South America.
OTR Web is a Certified Partner with HubSpot and Google.
For all your Inbound Marketing and Website requirements