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The Secret to B2B SEO: Build Authoritative Content with Your SMEs

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In the era of AI search and information overload, SEO success no longer comes from simply optimizing keywords or creating listicles. It comes from credibility. And credibility is built with authoritative content rooted in subject matter expertise.
This blog was inspired by the CXL Cohort on Content Strategy for the AI Era, led by Alex Birkett.
The course challenged how I think about SEO and content production.
It reframed content not as volume or traffic alone, but as a credibility engine that helps your brand become the trusted source across Google, LinkedIn, ChatGPT, and other platforms.
If you’re still relying on surface-level articles or outsourced generalists to produce your B2B content, you’re falling behind.
AI tools can now summarize generic insights instantly.
What they cannot replicate is your company’s unique expertise, real-world experience, and product-specific knowledge.
That is where your internal and external SMEs (subject matter experts) become your biggest SEO advantage.
The Real Reason Generic Content Fails
The internet is saturated with content.
AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity can synthesize thousands of articles instantly.
The result? Consensus content, tons of it, and the value is decreasing very fast.
Google and LLMs now filter for trust signals that show credibility:
- First-person experience
- Original data or frameworks
- Clear author bios and affiliations
- Unique insight, not just summaries
B2B buyers, especially in complex or high-ticket categories, are not looking for regurgitated tips. They want deep, practical, experience-backed content from real experts.
If your content lacks those trust signals, it will not get visibility in search, citations in AI models, or trust from buyers.
In short, content credibility and trust are the new human ranking factors.
Why Extracting SME Insight Is So Hard
Here is the paradox.
Your subject matter experts have the insights that can make your brand stand out.
But getting that insight out of their heads and into high-performing content is messy.
Common challenges:
- SMEs are not marketers. They speak in technical language or go off-topic.
- They do not have time. Interviews drag on or get canceled.
- Editorial friction. SMEs feel like marketers “dilute” their voice or oversimplify their points.
Meanwhile, marketing teams struggle with:
- Creating structure without stifling expertise
- Balancing SEO optimization with authenticity
- Scaling expert-driven content without bottlenecks
Without a repeatable system, SME-driven content often ends up delayed, disjointed, or left unpublished.
So here’s the solution.
How to Build and Operationalize your SME-Driven Content
Here is how to solve the workflow and scale the impact.
1. Identify and Activate Your SMEs
Your subject matter experts are not just engineers or executives.
They might be:
- Customer support leads
- Salespeople who hear objections daily
- Product managers with competitive intel
- Customers or partners with implementation experience
To uncover insights:
- Scrape Slack channels or Notion docs for recurring themes
- Use tools like Fireflies or Gong to transcribe sales and support calls
- Interview SMEs directly in short 15 to 30 minute sessions
- Tap customer stories or Q and A sessions as raw material
Tip: Position SME content as a way for experts to build their personal brand, not just help marketing.
2. Build a Lightweight Editorial Workflow
Do not expect SMEs to write full blog posts.
Instead, create an “input layer” process:
- Briefs: Provide structure — what the post will cover, who it is for, and what insights are needed.
- Interviews: Record sessions focused on a single topic. Ask, “What do most people get wrong about this?”
- Outlining: Extract the key ideas, quotes, and product tie-ins from transcripts.
- Drafting: Let the editorial team shape it into publishable content without losing the expert’s voice.
- Review: Give the SME final say, not first draft ownership.
This avoids endless rewrites and keeps the content credible and focused.
3. Use AI to Support, Not Replace, Expert Insight
Tools like ChatGPT, NotebookLM, and Claude can streamline content synthesis:
- Summarize long transcripts
- Generate first-draft outlines
- Identify gaps in logic or narrative
- Help structure content by persona or intent
But do not use AI to replace expert thinking.
Use it to amplify it.
4. Focus on Information Gain and Product Context
Authoritative content is not just about saying something. It is about saying something new.
Ways to add information gain:
- Turn SME insight into proprietary frameworks
- Incorporate internal data such as anonymized benchmarks or patterns
- Compare and contrast solutions with firsthand knowledge
- Tie the content directly to product differentiators
This is how to create authoritative content for Google.
Combine depth with originality and relevance to user needs.
Tools and Tactics to Scale SME Content
Here is how to make expert-driven content a repeatable process:
- Airtable or Notion for SME content planning and tracking
- Fireflies, Grain, or Descript for call recording and transcription
- ChatGPT with SME prompts to generate outlines or refine narratives
- Repurpose SME interviews into blog posts, podcast snippets, social threads, and internal training materials
Measuring the Impact: Visibility Beyond Rankings
Authoritative content has long-tail value even when traditional traffic metrics fall short.
To track effectiveness:
- Run LLM visibility audits using tools to check if your brand appears in AI answers
- Add “How did you hear about us?” to forms for self-reported attribution
- Monitor off-site citations and brand mentions across Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, and review sites
This helps you prove that authoritative content drives awareness, trust, and revenue even without the click.
A Note from My Experience
I completed the CXL Cohort on Content Strategy for the AI Era, led by Alex Birkett.
One of the biggest mindset shifts I took from the program was realizing that success in modern SEO is no longer just about publishing content. It is about becoming the source.
That means building trust, credibility, and visibility across multiple platforms so your brand appears in both Google search and large language models like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
Over the last few months, I have been developing a content editorial process built around subject matter experts and proprietary data. It is still evolving, but the cohort gave me the clarity I needed to improve the system and make it more scalable and effective heading into the next quarter.
Authoritative content naturally takes time to develop. But using AI to synthesize SME inputs and unstructured source material has made the process significantly faster and easier to manage.
I am still building my AI capabilities. At first, it was daunting. But by leaning into it and experimenting, I found my footing. Now, after seeing how AI can support not just content speed but strategic direction, I am genuinely excited to be part of the SEO industry in this new era.
If you are looking for a proven framework to align your experts, editors, and strategists, I highly recommend reading Alex Birkett’s Editorial Cabinet model. It offers a practical and repeatable approach to content production without sacrificing depth or quality.
Learn AI in Marketing from expert instructors
For those seeking deeper, hands-on frameworks and expert guidance, explore CXL’s AI in B2B Marketing program to accelerate your journey.

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