The web is a new territory, and no one can claim that he/she knows the ins and out of online business!
There are many experts in various fields and niches and several experts can direct you to the intricacies of online interaction. Especially so, when your aim at sales or make a business on the web.
There are not any standard operations and everyone needs to find his/her own voice for the market he/she want to exploit!
What Is Authority?
Everything is about choices! there are no standard routes, but if you want a short roadmap here is one of the possible thousands (or even million) can help you to build authority!
Start with your online presence (a term I first heard by Chris Brogan) and continue to provide value to your community or to the prospects you want to form your community.
Research your subjects, find what are the problems the people you want to serve to want to solve, and came up with creative ways and solutions.
Keep up with providing value to the people you aspire to help and keep a keen eye on their needs.
Try to act pro-actively provide them with more information and tips they can use seamlessly in their day-to-day lives and operations.
If you act consistently and have a plan, soon you would be able to serve more effectively some people and influencing them towards an ideal state of their business or life or both.
At this point, you would have acquired the knowledge to provide them with a more coherent framework, ideas, and concepts they can use to climb up towards their objectives!
You can lead them on how they can achieve their goals!
You would have been a point of reference for the subjects you have dealt with and perhaps you have formed a “tribe” around you (as Seth Godin wrote in his excellent and inspirational book: Tribes: We need you to lead us!)
You would have gain authority in your subject domain!
How to Develop Authority
There are many ways to develop authority besides the general roadmap I lay out before. More concrete and solid can help you to start developing your presence and your authority on the domain or niche you want to excel.
The first (strategic) steps though are:
- Select your strategy and goals to achieve
- Select your domain or/and niche. Preferably a domain area you are passionate about and you want to work creatively for many years providing more value and efforts towards the people in this domain or niche market.
- Start developing a platform to communicate your message and ideas (btw you would benefit tremendously if you read the excellent book of Michael Hyatt on the subject: Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World)
- Establish online presence
- Start developing a personal or corporate brand
These are of course the absolute minimum steps in order to raise a small amount of attention by the people you want to get noticed!
There are other ways to raise attention, though, which can be compatible or supportive of the above strategic axis of your online presence.
Some of these ways are described next.
10 Ways to Develop Authority
There are many ways to develop authority in your domain or/and niche market and build an online business. Some are better than others, some depend on your personal style and even more may prove totally incompatible with your personality.
There are though some basic ways to develop an online presence, authority, and business.
Some of the most prominent ones are:
- Develop a blog or a site as a constant point of reference for your thoughts, ideas, approaches, etc. This blog or site would give you a solid place in Internet everyone can visit for examining, viewing or reviewing your ideas or discuss with you. Explore aspects of your domain or niche market with your posts and issue calls-to-action for people to participate in the discussions.
- Select 2-3 major social networks (the more suitable to your working habits and your personality) and use them as outlets for your info, news, etc. in order to raise an interest
- Write one book (or more) on the subject and see the results. You could also publish various e-Books exploring different aspects of the main domain and providing more value to your audience
- Develop courses, seminars, webinars, etc. Start provide lectures, offer teaching sessions, etc
- Develop some public speaking about the main subjects of your market
- Develop some virtual or physical products and market them!
- Start providing consulting and/or coaching services and profit from your knowledge and skills
- You can form, develop, design and participate in membership sites with special interests, groups, mentorship networks, business networks or mastermind formations for other experts in the field.
- Write articles, guest blogs, white-papers, comments, etc. for other related sites, blogs, forums, networks, etc.
- Associate with the right people (leaders in the field, connoisseurs, domain experts, etc.) and participate in the right groups and networks (i.e. the ones are top on the field you want to excel)
Question: Do you have other ways to develop authority or online presence? Which ways are the best? Please leave your comments, here!
