{"id":180284,"date":"2024-09-23T05:14:38","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T10:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/?p=180284"},"modified":"2024-09-23T06:07:37","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T11:07:37","slug":"overcome-fear-of-thought-leadership-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/overcome-fear-of-thought-leadership-content\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get Over the Fear of Creating Thought Leadership Content"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Five years ago, I published a study where we investigated 3.6 million domains<\/a> to find out if Squarespace was great for SEO.<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the thing: We previously ran the exact same study for Wix and it did well. So we decided to replicate it for Squarespace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite innocuous, right? Turns out it wasn\u2019t. Someone shared the takeaways from that post on Reddit<\/a> and boy, was the criticism full on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Criticism<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"Criticism<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"Criticism<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Call me thin-skinned, but I remember feeling hurt. It was my first ever \u2018research\u2019 article, after all. And it was as safe a research study as possible. But reality is often harsher than you\u2019d imagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Criticism doesn\u2019t diminish. Five years later, I still see the same about the studies I publish:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Criticism<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"Criticism<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n

The reason why I\u2019m telling these stories is because making thought leadership content\u2014studies, opinions, experiments\u2014can be scary. Criticism will come hard and fast. You\u2019ll put yourself out there and can expect to receive \u2018hate\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d admit that\u2019s one reason why I (used to) love making SEO content<\/a>. Use a couple of SEO tools, pop in the necessary H2s (What is X? Why is X important? How to do X?), and fill in the blanks. No opinion required. Publish a post and tuck yourself in bed, warm and cozy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s only a matter of time that it won\u2019t work anymore. We\u2019ve avoided years of controversy as content marketers by shuffling ideas around<\/a>. Content curation<\/a> is safe because it can\u2019t offend anyone. But generative AI can do that regurgitation now. And it can do that better than all of us\u2026 and at scale too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we want to stand out in our careers and help the companies we work for differentiate from others, we need to embrace creating thought leadership content. Sharing lived experiences, professing strong opinions, and gaining and using our hard-earned expertise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doing that first requires us to overcome that fear of putting ourselves out there.<\/p>\n

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