I’ve written a lot about authority and influence in the past and for today’s Quick Blogging Tips, I thought I’d touch on, well… let’s call it authority proof.
When we’re establishing our authority, it’s important imperative that we build it on a solid foundation. That foundation begins with our online reputation. Without it, we’ll never truly achieve authority or influence. Let me give you a couple of examples:
SEO Articles
We’ve all seen the blog posts on SEO, there are a ton of them. How many of them actually know what they are talking about? Anyone can find other posts and articles on the topic and put what they’ve read into their own words but if they’re not ranking themselves, who are they fooling? Most of us can see at a glance that the blog is struggling with SEO themselves.
Traffic Blogs
Blog posts on traffic are another one that stands out. I recently rejected a guest post offer because the blogger wanted to write about driving traffic. That’s a great topic but when I visited his blog it was blatantly obvious that he had no real traffic. That not only hurts his reputation but would have hurt mine if I had allowed that post on my blog.
Make Money Blogging Posts
This one is almost laughable in a lot of cases. We see new bloggers each month popping up and want to “teach” others how to profit from their blogs when they haven’t generated any revenue themselves. They hope their readers will sign up for every affiliate program they recommend and really begin to earn a profit. His is about as deceitful and dishonest as it gets.
Product Review Posts
Okay, just one more… You may have noticed our recent theme change; while looking for theme to use, I came across a Genesis child theme review that almost sold me on it. Then, while reading some of the comments, the author admitted he had actually never installed or tried the theme because he wasn’t using Genesis. WTH? How can we review something we haven’t used? Shouldn’t we try and test a product before e recommend it? Reputation counts and a lot of bloggers are throwing it away without any thought.
I could go on and on; if we’re going to develop authority on a topic, it’s a good idea to have a little experience and knowledge on what we’re writing about. When we’re trying to “fake it until we make it“, our influence weakens and slows, if not stops, our growth.
The Right Way To Blog About A New Experience
When we see bloggers writing beyond their expertise, it’s not always an attempt to deceive others; it’s often derived from excitement and eagerness. So when we’re super excited about something we recently discovered and just have to blog about, we can. Let’s take a look at a couple of ideas;
Make It Are Case Study
If you want to write about list building, for example, and you just started a list yourself, you can still blog about it. You can treat it as a real-time case study and allow your readers to experience and grow with you.
Bring In An Expert
Or you can bring in a real email marketing expert in the form of an interview or question and answer post. We can blog about anything that we’re excited about but don’t forget, people can see through an impostor. Just be honest, you can maintain long term respect with it.
What’s Your Experience?
Have you run across phony success stories of regurgitated content from a blogger that obviously has very little experience with? (No names or links please, let’s keep thinks friendly) Do you think this hurts their reputation? Can you think of other ways bloggers can write about their excitement without coming across as a fraud?
Recommended Articles:
Creating Authority Pages With Regular Updates
Our Three Part Online Reputation Series
Your Online Reputation Counts: Part One – Scores And Ranking
Your Online Reputation Counts: Part Two â Selling Your Integrity
Google Plus Is More Powerful Than Facebook – Your Online Reputation Counts: Part Three
About Brian D. Hawkins
That’s an interesting way of looking at things. I would say that it probably wouldn’t hurt your blog or credibility much but it might for the other person. For instance, I read an interesting post today on Ana Hoffman’s blog about how her traffic doesn’t correlate to the amount of money she makes. And that post talked about a lot of ways to make money. Does that ruin her credibility? I don’t think so.
Still, verifying the sources who want to write for you or things you write about is prudent.
It doesn’t ruin hers because she, or the article author, knows what she/they’re talking about. Let her try to write about peeing standing up too many times and see where her credibility goes. lol
Dude, if you started writing about it I’d be wondering about your credibility as well lol
Blogging about new experiences are actually exciting to me. Well, there’s nothing wrong about it, because that’s what we call journey and we can always apply it to whatever things we blog about.
I agree Shane, as long as it’s portrayed as a journey and not as a “lesson” when we have yet to learn it ourselves.
Blog about what you love or in other words find your niche. As for your question, yeah, I know one blogger who tries to look too guru but as a result appear to be just a soap bubble….
Oh no, not a soap bubble! LOL I love that Evan. 🙂
Reputation and writing based on that is going to be very beneficial to others right now and in the long run.
I couldn’t agree no more with how you mentioned that way too many bloggers write about topics that they really don’t work on and ones that they don’t back up with.
Even some of us that are conscious about this issue can be sucked into writing about a topic we are not well familiar with.
Excellent article man!
I hear you Samuel, and more often than not we’ll get straightened out with the comments.
It is so much easier Brian to blog about what you know and it’s usually about what you love at the same time. I find those posts flow so much better.
I like your idea of bringing in an expert too. It gives you more creditability.
And yes you must use a product before you review it. That should be rule #1.
Exactly Lisa, When we see someone writing a post on 10 ways to build your PageRank and they have a PR of zero, what do we think? Now take that same blogger posting an interview with Rand Fishkin and the reputation meter moves in the right direction.
Blogging about a subject you know nothing about only makes you look stupid in the end. I had someone send me a guest post with the same topic and when I visited their blog, they had NO visitors, but I had a detailed post about how to get tons of traffic. I didn’t know what they were smoking, but I politely said, “No” too.
When I started I think I read just about everything and all that information made me nuts because you can’t remember it all or know who is right or who is not. New bloggers have no clue and tend to go by what they read instead of using common sense. It is so much easier to believe what someone else is telling you instead of that little voice that say’s,” that is BS and you know it”.
It took me a long time to get that B, and now I can say, I write from the heart or I don’t write at all. Great post.
Me too Sonia, I was listening to all of the noise as well and a lot of it was on sales pages. I don’t even want to admit how much garbage I bought when I was starting out.
I had another guest post submission that was about SEO and one of their “tips” was to exchange links with other bloggers and to pay $5 for a Fiverr that builds links with automated blog commenting. I normally just ignore those but that one was so bad that I couldn’t help myself; I sent his an email and told him he should do himself a favor and start reading and get a clue.
Hi Brian,
When I read your posts, I learnt something new because I’m new blogger and I admit that I’m doing lot of mistakes. You’re so right that never say anything in your post if you have no experience.
Thank you.
There’s nothing wrong with being new Bashir, we’re all new at something. Even those that have blogged for years will make mistakes. Very often those mistakes teach us a lesson and that can make a great post.
In fact, I’m thinking of writing about about a huge mistake I recently made when hiring a Logo Designer. The issue isn’t resolved yet and when it is I’ll need a “Cooling off” period. I don’t want to write a revenge post or just go on the attack.
Hi Brian,
You have touched a very sensitive issue .
I would talk about myself here, I won’t pretend for sure.I don’t have much experience but MY blog is all about MY experience, MY learning and MY thought process and I stand by that.
Thanks a lot for this share.
Sapna
And you are doing a fine job at it Sapna, I’m still enjoying those infographics. Do you make those yourself?
HI Brian
The cartoons are being drawn by my daughter and these are all hand drawn sketches.
Thanks
Sapna
That’s pretty cool Sapna, she has a lot of talent. 🙂
Hi,
I agree with you, that you should try to blog about topics you are familiar with. It’s good to have made your own experiences with the things you are writing about so that you readers can learn from your mistakes or your insights.
I like your tip about interviewing somebody if your not an expert yourself on the topic. I should do this more often.
Thanks Frank, it’s not my original idea but it does work.
Those regurgitated stories are all over the place on the net these days. What gets my goat is when the blogger is trying to convince me they’re making millions and I just can’t see it from reading their posts.
As for those topics you mentioned, I reckon I’ve covered most of them although I prefer to write my own stuff rather than regurgitate stuff found on some other bloggers site.
I know it Sire, I can’t help but laugh when I see some of the stuff out there. It’s hard to believe they’re fooling anyone.
That just goes to show that you can’t brag about something that you do not have for yourself. That is why I’m an enthusiast for new experiences so that I actually have something to write about. This particular truth is really imperative for writers.
Thanks Vianney, I find myself trying new blogging techniques just to share with our readers. If they work or not I still have something to share.
Of course your blog is all about your experience how can your post about something without knowing about it properly 🙂
In most niches readers can tell if you don’t know what you are on about. They will never link to bad content and then you will end up failing. Also some niches seem to be very saturated. It might be worth it to go into a sub niche or to go looking for an uncrowded niche.
There are some pretty populated niches, that’s for sure Jany. Even blogging about blogging has a lot of competition.
True Becca, I’m reading more now than I have my entire life.
It’s quite similar to the statement… “You cannot give what you don’t have”. I personally feel annoyed with people who talk about something who do not actually experience it for themselves. It feels so much like you’ve been lied to.
That’s exactly what it’s like, “Being lied to.” Great way to sum it up Stacey. 🙂
Practice what you preach. That’s such a fundamental rule which should always be practiced. Thanks for that enriching article.
I used to write about every day pish-posh when I first started out then I realized that writing about everything under the sun can be quite a mess. I have then decided to focus on a certain topic and stick with that.
First time in HBT, I too appreciate the fact that one who is expert in any particular topic but yet many says that you can even blog on what you are interested in and learn and share. I hate people who just want to grab others attention on their way of earning money when in reality they themselves have never did that.
Exactly Koj, that deception is very common among bloggers.
I am new blogger who don’t have much knowledge and experiences about making money online, SEO, or driving traffic … But I learn about them every day from other people, other blogs. And I used to post on my blog what I have learnt and want to share it to newbies like me.
I see nothing wrong with sharing the road traveled Nam, as long as we’re not dishonest about results or guiding others down the wrong path.
Thanks for your post,
I like the idea of posts as a real-time Case Study, In a recent post about some of my Success Journal Notes you can actually see something that’s written based on my own experience. where you can read about some of the Blogging & Affiliate Marketing Basics.
I believe above all else the number one thing you should do with a blog is be yourself, be genuine, and do it passionately. People don’t relate so well with a website, but they will relate on a blog writer who is personal. The more you bring yourself out into your blog, the better chance people are going to ultimately feel safe, feel secure, and trust you! Let’s just take this website for example, If it wasn’t for Brain D. Hawkins doing G+ hang outs. I wouldn’t have trusted this website at all! I would think “Just another SEO website trying to sell me something or misleading me!” I’m here because I feel I can trust this Website. Because he talks on things that are relatable to the madness that is SEO, Blogging, and Social Media. He doesn’t feed you lies and it’s very evident!
Just testing out what have mentioned on my guest post about leaving you tube videos on commentluv. It truly does work! Now that is some cool stuff! Thanks Brian – Scott Craighead
Great article. As someone who is new to blogging, I can totally relate to what you are saying about SEO posts – I’ve read so many! And its difficult to know which ones to trust and act upon. Authority is something I hadn’t consciously considered before so it was useful to read this.
Hi,
I read your post and enjoy it. Thank you for the different ways to write about a new experience. The key is to be honest and it will help to engage an audience.