With search engines at your customers’ fingertips, it is important to control your online reputation. Creating your image and establishing your brand means asserting yourself as an expert in your chosen field. If you want to grow your business and enhance your online reputation, below are a few simple steps to label yourself as an expert in your field.
- Identify Your Niche. Before asserting yourself as an expert, identify your specific area of expertise. It is important to take into account how you would like to be portrayed to your customers. Narrow your field to assure customers that you are indeed an expert, and not just a business with weak general knowledge of your field.
- Make Yourself Seen Online. Once you have identified your area of expertise, assert your dominance on the internet. If potential customers cannot find you online, they will not know what you have to offer. Creating blogs, websites, and social media accounts will help you reach out to potential customers. These sites will also help you become more visible in search engine results.
- Understand the Value of Social Media. Search engines value social media sites because of their vast following. So to get yourself seen, utilize all social media outlets available, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The more social media presence you have, the more likely potential customers will find you and your expertise.
- Reach Out to Other Websites. Use the internet to connect to other websites and outlets. Conduct interviews for news sites, be a featured expert on media websites, and get mentioned in blogs. These outlets open up your viewership to a whole new market. The more you are quoted, featured, and interviewed, the more people will believe that you are an expert in your field.
- Become an Industry Leader. Once you have established a base following, continue your outreach through more well-known and reputable outlets such as Podcasts, major news agencies, and established sites for your industry. Once you have the proper foundation, you will be easily accepted as an expert by these respectable agencies.