Articlez.com Blog

There’s an old saying: “Nothing succeeds like success.” Sometimes, what you need to do in order to become successful is to become known as a success. But just how do you do that?

While a variety of opinions can be offered, one key component of success is this: successful people are usually known as experts in their field of endeavor. When you position yourself as an “expert” people have an easier time thinking of you as “successful.” And when people think of you as successful, that begins to open many doors of opportunities to add to your network and grow your business.

But that leaves unanswered a very important question: HOW do you position yourself in your community as an expert — as an authority?

And the key is in the words “your community.” There is no use in trying to forge an image of being an expert if you have no audience, no community of people with like-minded interests to interact with. Becoming an expert, put very simply, is all about getting your community on your side, acknowledging your skills and know-how.

In this blog post, let us outline briefly some practical things you can start doing to raise awareness of your expert-ness among those you are trying to reach. Others have blogged about these things before, and it’s not rocket science, but we’ll try to put our own spin on it as we go…

The Royal Road To Becoming An Online Expert

Blogging: Let’s start close to home — your company blog site. Assuming that your company has one (you do have one, don’t you?), how often are you posting there — you, yourself — not your staff or “guest” posters. The only way to build up your reputation as an expert is for people to hear directly from you.

Blogging is very democratic – every site can have a blog. Some sites are nothing more than a blog site. They are easy to set up and easy to maintain.

But there are two recurring challenges that come with a blog:

1. Some people do not write well.
2. And after some time, you may run out of things to blog about.

There are solutions/workarounds for these challenges (more on that later) but the important thing is to blog regularly – at least once a week – and make sure that you are offering something different, something unique, instead of the usual rehash of a rehash of the same old stuff.

Blogging For Others: Once you have paid your dues, so-to-speak, with your blogging, and have put out a bunch of posts, over an extended period of time, you can try leveraging that to go to the next level. What’s that? Why, writing for other people’s blog sites. That way, you can expand your readership. Make sure to only look for blogging opportunities where you can get some bit of personal recognition – your name, business site, and hopefully a link back to your site or some other way where people can reach out to you or find out more about you. Ghostwriting is a waste of time, because the goal here is to build up your reputation, and you can’t do that when people don’t know (and can’t find out) that it was you who wrote what they are reading! [To be clear: at articlez.com we use people as ghostwriters, but in this post we are talking about you, the biz owner, ghostwriting on other people’s sites, which for you has zero value.]

And frankly, you should realize that you will face the same two challenges here as when you are blogging for your own site: Your writing has to be very polished and it can be very difficult to come up an “angle” for a guest blog post that will be acceptable to that site owner. You are going to have to be 2x-4x as creative with your blogging topics as before, when you begin writing for other websites — and that’s a real challenge!

Socialize On Social: Another excellent way to enhance your reputation as an expert is to make sure that you are visible — and active — on various social channels where your potential followers can be found. Whether it’s on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, or some other platform, you need to be there:

• Your interactions need to be 100% correct.
  Your interactions need to be 1000% helpful.
  Your interactions need to be 0% about you, your business, or yourself.

As loads of people are on social today, it’s harder than ever to get noticed, but there is no substitute – you’ve got to find a way to be so helpful – so insightful – so expert – that you stand out from the masses of wannabes. It’s going to take time and effort and creative thinking. But the nut can be cracked. And believe me, when you start to be recognized on social channels as an expert voice, that can take your business to a brand-new level!

Develop Resources: All true “experts” eventually reach a point where they begin to distill what they have learned, all the knowledge they have gained, and begin to share it with others.

For example, someone who has spent the last 15 years learning how to purchase properties, fix them up and sell them at a profit, might decide to sit down and flesh out an ebook that lays out the process, beginning-to-end, for someone who has never done it before.

Or it might be a sales guide, or series of lessons in a tutorial, or an email autoresponder sequence. You might decide to set up a membership site where you could offer expert advice, tips and guidance to others.

When you develop resources that others find truly helpful (and even critically necessary!) people will increasingly think of your as an expert in your field.

The “Fly” In the Ointment — And a Good Solution

One of the things that you may have noticed, as you read this post, is that most of our recommendations revolve around developing – and using – some sort of content: content for blog posts (on your sites or someone else’s), content for social posting/interactions/sharing, content for ebooks, or study guides, how-to guides, and the like.

But what if you are not a good writer? What if you are stymied for angles and creative ideas?

That’s where we at Articlez.com can help. Stop by our business portal, sign up for a FREE account, and send us a quick support ticket. Tell us what you need and let us see if we can’t help to supply you with the content you need. To ask a question — or two or three — costs you nothing. Every day we get inquiries and we find that we can help most people with their content needs.

Why not stop by today? The sooner you get some good content (from us) – the sooner you can begin to position yourself as an expert in your niche, with all the benefits and advantages that can bring you!