The brief
EY is a brand with exceptional expertise and a vast body of published thought leadership. The challenge was not a lack of content — it was that the content operated as a library rather than a network. Each piece existed independently. The topic associations were dispersed. The authority signals, despite the scale of the brand, were not concentrated enough in specific areas to dominate AI-driven and featured snippet search results in the way the content quality deserved.
The approach
Mapped [X] content clusters across [X] service lines, identifying pillar topics and supporting subtopics for each. Audited [X]+ existing pieces against cluster relevance and retrieval readiness. Produced restructured briefs for [X] priority pieces and [X] new content briefs to fill identified gaps. Built hub-and-spoke internal linking models for each cluster.
Developed an editorial outreach strategy targeting [X] tier-one publications in each service line category. Coordinated [X] thought leadership placements featuring named EY partners as subject matter experts, generating [X]+ editorial mentions across [X] months. Built co-citation relationships by ensuring EY experts were quoted alongside other recognised authorities in the field.
Implemented [X] on-page improvements across priority pages including heading structure, meta data, schema markup, and content formatting. Fixed [X] technical issues identified in the crawl audit. Improved Core Web Vitals scores across the priority page set from [X] to [X] on mobile. Implemented Article and FAQ schema on [X] restructured pieces.
The results
The lesson for enterprise brands
The EY engagement reinforced something I have found consistently across large organisations: scale is not the same as authority. A brand can publish hundreds of pieces of content and still lack the concentrated topic signals that drive AI citation and featured snippet dominance in specific areas.
The cluster approach — selecting the highest-value topic areas and building deep, interlinked authority there first — produces faster and more durable results than attempting to improve visibility across the entire content library simultaneously. The Search Visibility Framework is built around this principle.
Interested in a content cluster and authority strategy for your organisation?
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