Blogs are a great way to stamp your authority in your industry. This is because blogs are generally a platform to engage your client base. You want your blog to be resourceful, authoritative, and engaging; you want people coming back, again and again. Here are 5 ideas on how you can use that blog to establish yourself as an industry mainstay.

Share your knowledge

People can only be convinced that you are knowledgeable in your niche if you always have something to say especially if you can give the information away for free. The more you give, the more people will be willing to hire you. You have the freedom to insert a few pictures and videos in your blog. YouTube is viewed by millions every single day; creating some on-point motion images regarding your industry will help you draw more visitors.

Don’t cite others, be the source

 While you aspire to be the expert, you should appreciate the fact that other people might be better positioned to receive breaking news before you do. However, avoid citing other people’s research, strive to be the source. You’ll need to be on the frontline, keeping in touch with developing news, trends, and even personalities in that industry. If you are always providing relevant, updated information, people will start to take note. The next time they are looking for news on that topic, they will directly visit your blog.

Make your content detailed but understandable

An expert doesn’t stop at the obvious, your audience has probably heard about it elsewhere. Go a little deeper, find new content, and proudly share it. And it becomes even better if you can support your content with figures, statistics, and facts from newspapers journals, magazines, and scholarly journals from around the world; it boosts your relevance, credibility, and authority. It immediately tells your readers that you know what you are talking about.

 Within the detail, however, you must remain clear and understandable. While people think that expertise comes with technical language, jargon, and acronyms, the opposite is actually true; be as simple as you can. If possible you should consider giving examples that the readers can relate to in real life.

Always be available to share your thoughts

Readers will value you more if you are always available to answer their questions. When doing so, treat everyone with equal respect be it a novice or a fellow expert. Your blog probably has social media plug-ins; follow up on comments, tweets, and likes on social media and respond to them accordingly. Another great way of sharing is doing a few guest blogs. This will give you the chance to appear on other reputable blogs, from where you can catch get one or two new readers.

Highlight your achievements

Yes, you don’t become an expert overnight so your readers are better off knowing where you are coming from. Highlight any citations, awards, and achievements obtained as recognition for your contribution to the niche.  If you have guest-posted in an authority blog or appeared in a respected print, radio, or TV media, you should consider indicating those as some of your achievements. People want to see you as an expert in the industry; you must show them just that.

Summary

Of course, your blog has to look professional if you want to establish yourself as an expert. Participating in online communities, message boards and forums will also help.