Become an Authority in Your Niche

One of the reasons to produce and share content that you’ve created is to become an authority in your niche. As an expert in your niche, you will get a certain amount of respect, which leads to more traffic due to your perceived expertise. But, in order to become an expert, you must start at the beginning.

Blog Often

Shoot for blogging on your own website at least once a week. When you first start up, you should try to blog at least 20 times that first month. Blog about focused topics, starting from a beginner’s perspective and working your way up over the next year to a more advanced perspective. Also, guest blog strategically on websites that market to your audience. Blogging is one of the best ways to get traffic to your website.

It’s also important to try to be consistent. From personal experience, I know how hard that can be. I always tend to prioritise my clients’ work over marketing my own business – never a good strategy but we’re all human!

Write Articles

Write and distribute articles about your niche on topics your audience would be interested in. Find online and offline magazines in which to contribute as an expert in your niche. If you submit a compelling article, it’s likely your submissions will be used.

A good place to connect with editors and journalists is on Twitter. So, if you targeting a specific publication, it can be a great place to start.

Become a Resource

Let the local and national press know that you’re a resource they can call on when they need a quote about your niche. You can do this in a variety of ways, such as sending an email to reporters when they write about your niche, making blog comments, and using a service like HARO (Help a Reporter Out). HARO is a way that you can sign up to be a source to qualified reporters on any topic you choose. There are free and paid opportunities.

Set up Consistent Profiles

No matter whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn, or your blog, your profiles should be very consistent. You want to be very careful about contradicting who you are across accounts. Ensure that you essentially say the same thing on each social media account but in different ways based on the type of social media account. For instance, LinkedIn is more business-like and buttoned up, while Facebook is more social – more like an after-hours business event. Of course, you should be businesslike and professional on all accounts.

Send Out Press Releases

When you do something exciting in your business, whether it’s publishing a book, having a webinar, or conducting an interview for a radio show or podcast, send out a press release. Press releases are a good way to get online back links to your website but they’re also a good way to get in print.

Form Partnerships with Other Experts

A really good way to get your name out there is to form a joint venture with another expert. Perhaps you know an expert who markets to your audience but performs or creates a complementary service or product. Seek to do something with that person such as a webinar, podcast show, or jointly write an informative eBook.

I work with a whole range of experts in different niches, from email marketing to graphic design to telemarketing. All of these areas are complementary to my business. I’ve also published a book with Sammy Teather of Teather Creative Design. It was based on our individual skills and joint experience in developing new products. The book is ‘4 Simple Steps to Your Next Big Idea!’ and is available on Amazon.

Finally, it’s important to work on yourself and your knowledge of the area you want to become an expert in. This is an easy one for me as I love to learn! Malcolm Gladwell, in his bestselling book ‘Outliers: The Story of Success’, stated that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert on any topic. Seek to keep learning as you become a true expert. You don’t have to wait until you’ve spent 10,000 hours to start presenting yourself as an expert. If you start doing the groundwork now, you’ll soon become the niche expert you want to be.