How to Use the Free Tools Available to Brand Yourself as a Trusted Expert

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As I’ve mentioned before, you can’t become a Trusted Expert by buying advertising. It’s been a long time since advertising built trust, especially on the web, and we’ll never see those days again.

Now, if you were using traditional advertising theories and strategies, you would now be stumped as to what you could do to promote your business. But you’re not, you’re dealing with the online world, and you’re going to be applying new theories to this new way of reaching people. You are a Trusted Expert (or at least you will be by the time I’m done with you.)

And a Trusted Expert has tools at their disposal that they can use to establish their position in their category as an authority. And best of all, those tools are free. I’ll be going over those tools in the next few posts, starting with blogs.

Blogs

Your blog is your best resource for positioning yourself as a Trusted Expert. And you don’t even have to have your own to use it this way. Here’s how:

First thing to do – start reading blogs. (Which, if you’re here, you’ve already started doing.) Read ones in your category and niche, read ones outside of it. Bookmark and subscribe to the ones you like, and maybe even to a couple that you don’t like but has fantastic numbers. You’ll start to get an idea of what works and what doesn’t, how to reach out to readers, how to generate traffic, and how to create controversy and create publicity for yourself.

Next step is to start commenting on those blogs you like, don’t like, etc. Make sure you’ve got something reasonably intelligent to say, hopefully something witty, and link to your website. Not only will you get some additional traffic to your website from the blog, it makes Google’s search engine like you more.

Keep your eye out for comments on your category or niche; think of something useful to say (remember, you want to be a Trusted Expert!) Give people advice or help where you can. If it’s applicable, invite the person with the problem to take it to email where you can help them even more. Next time that person is looking for something you sell, chances are they’ll go to you.

If you come across a blog or comments that mentions you, your product, or your website in a negative sense, for goodness’ sake address it. Explain who you are; offer up the chance to address the problem directly. If there truly was a screw-up, admit it and apologize – in this age of “It’s anybody’s fault but mine” you’d be surprised how many people will appreciate a “Yup. I messed up; but I’m fixing it and it won’t happen again.” People will appreciate your honesty and realize that we’re all human and forgive you. And more importantly, associate you with a real human being and not a faceless corporation. (Note – they will do this the first time this happens; keep screwing up and, even if you admit it, you’ll look like an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s doing – the opposite of a Trusted Expert.)

More to come in the next post about what to do when you start your own blog….

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