One of the best forms of marketing is to become an expert in your industry and / or for your target market. By becoming an expert, you raise your profile and chances of being found by your target market.

One way to become an expert is to write articles to showcase your expertise.

We are all an expert at something and you will need to brainstorm subjects that you are knowledgeable about and able to educate people on. Once you have some ideas, you can schedule time to write out these articles.

Remember to write with your target market in mind and one of the best types of articles is when you provide solutions to some of their basic problems.

Why not think about what subjects you could cover for the following:

Top ten ways to …
Five steps to …
… in 30 days

Once completed, there are a variety of different websites that you can publish your articles to so that other people can use them and get your name out there.

Some websites include:

www.ezinearticles.com
www.ladypens.com
www.submityourarticle.com
www.articledashboard.com
www.articledepot.co.uk
www.articlefinders.com

Also make sure that you include the finished articles on your website and blog as they are a great way to add fresh content to your website – search engines love this.

Being considered an expert in your particular industry is an excellent marketing tool. It raises your profile and increases the chance of your being found by people from within your target market and others interested in promoting your industry.

Everyone is an expert on something. But, you need to decide upon which subjects you consider yourself knowledgeable, and about which you are able to educate others. Then, you can schedule time to write your articles.

An article in which you provide solutions to some recognised basic problems is usually a popular one. Always keep your target market in mind when you write your articles.

Remember to recycle the articles on your website, and in your blog and newsletter. And, perhaps most importantly, you should syndicate articles to dedicated online article directories.

When you syndicate your articles, you have the opportunity to attach an ‘Author Tag’, which is a short paragraph about you and your business. In this information you should include a ‘call to action’ and a link to your website, for example: “For more free Hints and Tips like these, sign up for our free monthly ezine at www.yourwebsite.com/news”.

The benefit of submitting to online article directories is twofold. First, because these directories have fresh content added to them every day, in the form of new articles, the search engines ‘crawl’ them constantly and add the information to their search results. So, your article, and the link to your website, will become indexed and available for the world to see. In turn, the search engine may follow and, therefore, crawl, or re-crawl, your website.

The second benefit is that content-hungry ezine, blog and Twitter posters visit others’ sites looking for articles to reproduce. You should make sure that a condition of using your articles is that your ‘Author Tag’ is left intact. This establishes your reputation as an expert with this new audience, and search engines may index your article on their blog or website and direct traffic to your website as a result of your link.

And the last, but by no means the least important reason to syndicate you articles, is that journalists often visit these sites looking for experts whom they can quote or interview. Just think how much this sort of publicity would cost in advertising, or if your article was published in your industry’s top publication. And, imagine what it would mean to your business if you were interviewed as a leading authority in your particular area of expertise on national TV or radio!

Get writing now and start promoting your expertise! Share some of your articles with us, post links to them in the comments section below.