Building your business online can be very daunting. You may have a lot of knowledge, skills, products and services to offer. But when nobody knows who you are, you will find clinching your first customers very challenging! To start gaining more leads and sales, you need to build your online authority. When you build your authority through the internet, you become a thought leader whom people will trust for advice. This will help you to grow your brand and business, especially if you would like to use personal branding to attract potential customers.

If you are a complete newbie and do not know where to start to build an online authority, then follow my top tips below:-

Determine Your Niche

Before you can start building your online authority, you need to decide on the niche you will be focusing on. Making a decision on the niche will help you to narrow down the type of research that will be relevant to growing your authority. This will save you so much time especially during content creation. 

Start a Blog

Contributing articles on a consistent basis on your blog is one of the best ways to start building your online authority. It provides you with an opportunity to research on topics related to your niche. When creating content for your blog, focus on writing quality evergreen content or articles that will be useful to your readers in years to come. When you do you do this, you will benefit from having visitors come to your blog through all your previous articles. You will also find many people linking back to your blog articles, when you provide valuable content. This is the power of creative content marketing.

Write Guest Blog Articles

When you contribute guest blog articles to other people’s blogs, you will expand the reach of your audiences. More people will begin to know about you, your brand and your business when they read your articles featured in other blogs. You also get to foster good relationships with other bloggers in your field, which can be good for future partnership initiatives.

Publish a Book

When you publish a book, you will instantly be seen as an expert in your field, especially when your book receives high ratings and reviews online. With the existence of Amazon, practically anyone can publish their own books and start selling them. So even for a complete newbie, publishing a book is possible!

Be Active on Social Media

Contribute posts, like, share and comment from your social media accounts on a regular basis. When you consistently update your social media accounts and establish a strong social following, more and more people will begin to recognise you as a thought leader and influencer in your chosen field. You can use your social media channels to do content marketing as well by sharing links to your website, blog and video articles. In addition, you can also build relationships with other thought leaders and influencers in your niche. This may be useful for your future initiatives. If you do not have a strong social media following and if your budget permits, you can run some paid advertising through your chosen social media channels to expose your posts and content to potential customers and encourage them to follow you.

Create a YouTube Channel

Not everyone likes to read. So by creating a YouTube Channel, you get to reach potential customers who prefer to learn through videos. When creating your YouTube videos, try to create videos that will teach your viewers how to do things, because this will help your potential viewers to discover your channel faster. For a cheaper alternative, you can just use your webcam or iPhone to record your videos. You can get more fancy with your video equipment later on if you wish.

Host a Podcast

For people who are constantly on-the-go, it becomes a challenge for them to even learn from videos. So you can reach out to them through podcast episodes. You can host your very own podcast channel easily. All you need is a great topic to kickstart your podcast session!

Become a Professional Speaker

There are a lot of speaking spots available globally, especially at industry conferences. Depending in your chosen industry, you can choose to reach out to potential audiences by booking a spot as a speaker at one of these conferences. During your speaking session, you will have the opportunity to deliver a valuable message to your audience, introduce yourself and demonstrate your expertise. The audiences who are impressed with your presentation will want to know more about what you and your business.

Create Information Products

Besides blog articles, you can also create information products to grow your online authority. Information products are a way for you to demonstrate your knowledge and skills in greater details because they are long-form content. Examples of information products you can create are eBooks, workbooks, special reports and white papers and video tutorials.

Teach eCourses

Apart from information products, you can also conduct eCourses to build your online authority. Teaching online courses are a great way to showcase your knowledge and skills because you get to delve deeper into the topics of your niche through both written and video content. When done properly, this will increase the public’s perception of you as an influencer in your field.

Run Classes and Workshops

Some people prefer to attend live classes and workshops instead of going to online courses. So if your budget permits, then you can also organise classes and workshops to showcase your experience in your chosen niche.

So there you have it – my top tips on How You Can Instantly Build an Online Authority (Even If You’re a Complete Newbie!). These strategies can be used no matter your level of experience in online marketing. If you like what I have shared and would like to receive my future blog updates, don’t forget to join to my newsletter by requesting my ‘7 Copywriting Mistakes’ free guide below.