The Number One Ingredient for Successful Business Blogging

It’s not easy to be considered an expert – otherwise, we’d all be experts, observes Renee Quinn on IPWatchdog.com. Yet, for us Indianapolis blog content writers, one big goal of the writing we do for our business owner and professional practitioner clients is just that – positioning them as experts in the eyes of their clients and of online searchers.

To be positioned as an expert, Quinn says, you can either be excellent at a few things or OK at a long list of things, but generally not both. Once you’ve decided on one of those two paths, never stop educating yourself in your area. Be confident in your knowledge, she advises, and stay active to show those who follow you what you’re passionate about. Needless to say, as a long-time business blogger and corporate blogging trainer, I was delighted at Quinn’s next piece of advice: Get writing – that’s a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field.  “When you answer unasked questions, you are gaining credibility and building trust,” she adds.

“Discuss specific topics of interest and newsworthy topics in your industry that are current and carry a lot of interest with your field,” Quinn continues. “By doing so, you are giving people a sneak peak at your level of knowledge on each topic while also remaining relevant and current”.

Having decided to devote this week’s Say It For You blog posts to the topic of expertise, I was absolutely intrigued by this statement by Stan Smith of Pushing Social:  “…dozens of compelling tactics compete for your attention.  With all these options, it’s easy to forget that expertise is the #1 ingredient for a successful content marketing and blogging. Without expertise, all of these topics are reduced to fancy magic tricks…”

Smith quotes one of my own favorite marketing gurus, Seth Godin: “Writing’s power of clarification is the main reason why he posts daily. Writing long-form content on popular topics in your niche will put your thinking on display and give your readers an opportunity to evaluate your expertise.”

No, it’s hardly easy to be considered an expert, hardly easy to be a blogger for business.  In fact, in the early years of my company Say It For You, I talked about the “drill sergeant discipline” needed by blog content writers and about the fact that the main key to business blogging success was going to be simply keeping on task.