Establishing yourself as an authority in a particular market segment is a great way to succeed. When people think of a particular topic, your product or service should come to mind, what do I mean? Well let’s say you are a real estate agent in San Francisco, you should be writing a daily blog of the market conditions while providing advice for home owners. If you own a pet store then you need to be writing a blog every day that gives tips on how readers can take care of their pets. The point is you need to be writing something that shows you know what you’re talking about, something that will give readers a reason to trust you.
If I visit a site that is trying to offer me to buy a product or service, why should I buy it? Think of real estate again. Let’s say you are trying to sell your house in San Francisco and you are looking for a real estate agent, you come across many websites but only one of those sites goes over market conditions, trends, etc. Which agent (website) are you most likely going to go with? Probably the one who has already demonstrated that he/she has knowledge in the real estate field.
The same goes for any other business. Don’t just put up a static website that shows your products or lists your services, show the readers why you are the best choice in that particular niche. It’s a bit like going to a job interview, you need to stand out and really show that you are an authority regardless of the business that you are in.
What are you doing to establish yourself as an expert or an authority in your field?
thanks for reading
This is a really good question, but I often end up asking people what they are already experts in and then tell them to establish their authority there. For example, I've had people ask before what they can do to establish themselves in sustainability blogging, so I say, “Well, is that your area of expertise?” If they say anything remotely close to “No, but that's what I want to get into,” I tell them to blog about their expertise and slowly begin to relate it to the field they would like to talk about. I mean, why would I bother reading anything on, say, personal finances if that was not the author's specialty?
hi eric, that's exactly correct. lee odden does a great job of getting leads through his blog which talks about seo and pr. he has established himself as an authority in this field and everyone who reads his blog understands that. a blog can do a lot of great things to help establish authority and credibility.
thanks for reading and commenting
For most small businesses, they need to identify the specific market and niche that they want to serve and work to differentiate themselves from the competition. Become the authority in the niche is a very effective approach.