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As a blogger, you have to find the niche in which you feel most comfortable writing. Whether it’s pets, technology, fashion, travel, or other lifestyle ideas, as a writer you will be looked at directly for the relevancy of your writing and how much knowledge you share. Now perhaps you’re just a life blogger, and that’s fine, perhaps you fall outside the realm of this post, but if you plan on writing about something specific, it’s important that you prepare yourself for future interaction with your community.

Why Expertise is Important

As the owner of a topic specific blog, you will be looked at by the community as an knowledgeable person in your field. Why? Well why would you blog about astrophysics if you don’t know anything about it? Why blog about cooking if you’ve not stepped foot into a kitchen? We tend to reach success when we write what we know best; it makes us comfortable and makes us easily approachable because we know enough about the topic to carry an informative conversation.

Expertise drives traffic to your site. Being considered an expert on your topic provides you a level of authority for your readers that keeps them coming back to your site for new information and insight they won’t find anywhere else. Even if your expertise is similar to others out in the field, you will be referenced at the very least because you stand at a level where what you say carries weight. Having this kind of authority can create a more tightly integrated community, and with the bloggers interaction, can form a cohesive site where ideas are shared, explored, and developed.

This is the very reason why expertise is so important for the writer!

Are Others Experts on Your Blog?

Believe it or not, many readers will actually delve into your comments section if they find the topic to be interesting enough. Driven readers will find themselves agreeing, disagreeing, and commenting themselves in order to participate, that’s the purpose of you sharing your blog. What you don’t want to happen is allow a commenter to take over the conversation and establish themselves as the expert on your site.

Make sure as a writer you develop your stories professionally and take the opportunity to do the necessary research and fact checking prior to posting. Dotting all your “i’s” and crossing all your “t’s” will give you the credibility you need as a writer. There is nothing wrong with other intelligent, well versed readers interacting on your site, it will further provide usefulness for you site. Just don’t be caught defending yourself when you realize you did not do enough research or know enough about a topic prior to posting. This type of faux-paux can make readers lost interest in your site and seek guidance and information elsewhere.

Take charge of your site, know your material, and confidently take the conversation to your readers!

Establishing Expertise

So how does one establish the necessary expertise? Well I already shared one way, being knowledgeable about the topic you choose to write about. But expertise can take time to develop if you’ve not developed it already. Here are a few key ways to make yourself the go to person.

1. Comment on other sites – By commenting on other sites you create a trail of followers who will look forward to your shared insight on a given topic. You’re not taking over another site’s conversation, but adding valuable perspective and driving others deeper into the concept. By establishing a following, when you create a blog, you’re given the opportunity to link your name to a site and soon people will want to know more about YOU.

2. Answer questions – I think specifically of LinkedIn when I say this. On LinkedIn, which is a professional social network, users are able to answer questions asked by others on a variety of professional topics. As an expert in your field, if someone asks something that falls within your realm of expertise, then by answering you have provided guidance for someone who was in need.LinkedIn actually ranks and rates your usefulness and others looking for established professionals will find how they can be found online, and contacted as well. This would be a great way to establish yourself and your site.

3. Guest blog – Perhaps you have a blog and no one is coming. Guest blogging is a great way to not only help the site you’re writing for with content, but also introduce others to your site. Making the appropriate contacts in the blogging world can go a long way. Links on the front page, by lines for people to find you work, and possibly even some free advertising. It definitely does not hurt to network within the blogging community. By building relationships and sharing information you establish yourself and others as strong professionals with definite expertise.

4. Have others talk about you – All of the above not quite enough to get the attention of the readers you’d like. Well have someone mention you in their post, recommend your site, share a piece of a conversation you had with them; all of the above are great way to drive traffic your way. Any friend with a blog site can mention you and what you know and if the right people see it, they will naturally be curious as to who you are. BINGO! Instant web traffic!

Never stray too far from the basics. These are simple steps to establish credibility and expertise in the blogosphere, but they are often times forgotten. Share this with your online network and look to build some of these tips into your daily online habits. If you’ve got some other tips or suggestions, leave them the comments section and let the community grow together!

Photo Credit Mai Le

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