Traffic Conversion Secrets Lesson 16 - Take Pride in Your Authority

People love to deal with experts. Experts can be trusted.
Experts are in the know. And, when we deal with experts
we feel smart for being able to spot them. So, when you
want people to automatically give you more credibility and
authority to encourage them to do business with you more,
flaunt your expertise. That's right, no one else is going
to do it for you and this is something that is not only all
right, on the Internet, but it is easily done. It's called
self-promotion and the Internet makes it a very easy thing
to do online. If you want people to recognize you for your
expertise, you will want to concentrate on your area of
expertise and then show off what you know. It's that
simple.   The Technique

There is a fine line between coming off as an expert and
being a pretentious imposter or know-it-all. If you really
don't know what you're talking about, that is going to come
across sooner or later. So, you do want to know your market
niche extremely well. You should do enough research so that
you can even anticipate your customers concerns and have
solutions ready for them when they come up. You will want
to be the person who not only knows your market, but the
desires of your customers too. 

Then, you will want to visit places that can allow you to
show off that knowledge without seeming pretentious or an
attention hog. Least of all, you don't want to visit just
to spam a group with your expertise when it's not even
related to the discussion. You should pick the venues that
you will be using to show off your expertise very
carefully. They should include forums, discussion groups,
blogs, your website, and sales page that allow you to add
information that gathers attention and solves a problem
without it appearing to be a direct solicitation.

This means that you will need to spend some time creating
your online image as the expert in residence. You will have
to write articles, author eBooks, write in other people's
blogs, do guest posts, frequent discussion groups, enter
topics into forums, and more. It's not easy being an
expert, but it's well worth it. Some people build their
image as an expert by collecting titles or degrees. That's
perfectly legitimate. If you have a PhD, flaunt it. Put the
initials after you name in all your email correspondence
and on your website too. There's nothing wrong with having
extra initials after your name and you'd be surprised the
air of credibility and authority that this gives you. Use
any advantage you have to express your authority on a
subject. If you are selling video games, you don't want
images on your website that show people incorrectly using
game consoles. If you are trying to sell beach supplies,
you don't want people on the site photographed in suits and
ties. This type of subtle visual statement leads people to
question your expertise, not because you yourself are
portrayed less professionally, but because you don't
associate with people who have authority. People with power
generally congregate with other people with power. If you
show up with less than ideal business partners or
affiliates, your expertise and authority are questioned,
not to mention your judgment.

The Secret

Since we were children, we have been taught to respect
authority. We idolized our parents for knowing more than we
did and we trusted them to guide us to make the right
decisions in life. Later, in school, we are put into an
educational system that grades us based on our knowledge of
the course material with the teachers being the ultimate
symbol of someone with the most expertise in a subject.
They were the ones we were supposed to respect and listen
to. After we started work, the same rules apply. 

Those people who know the system or the game of politics,
the experts in the company who deal with the other experts,
are the ones that demand our respect and obedience. Through
them, we gain our promotions and get the good things in
life. This habit of obedience to authority and recognition
of experts as the final say in life never really goes away.
It's been impressed upon us since early childhood and, in
many cases, a trusted expert becomes the reflection of a
trusted parent. We are more inclined to listen to these
experts, even feeling a sense of gratitude that there is
someone to listen to who can guide us in the proper choices
to make. It makes our lives easier and it becomes a
subconscious desire to follow authority just as we've been
programmed to do. It is so ingrained that some people never
question an expert, even if it appears they may not be all
that trustworthy. They are so accustomed to having someone
to tell them what to do that they actually can feel very
reassured just by having someone willing to take up the
mantle of authority for them.

Since marketers know that showing your expertise is a great
way to make a sale, there is plenty of competition from
people trying to sell themselves as experts. It's up to you
to differentiate your own knowledge, image, and authority
from everyone else so that people are more likely to come
to you than the next guy.

How to Make it Work

To become an expert on the web is easy. All you have to do
is make sure people know your qualifications and be careful
to always project the image of an expert everywhere you go.
Unlike a job interview that requires someone who you worked
with to offer a reference, you can be your own reference on
the web. For that, you want to take the time to develop
this strategy everywhere, not just for yourself, but your
company image too.

As we mentioned earlier, you will want to mine your
personal experience and express that whenever appropriate.
If you have a Master's or a PhD be sure use those initials
after your name when you email, when you add a post to a
discussion group or forum, or even when you comment on a
blog. It's a very simple matter and it adds loads of
authority to your current image. When people see those
initials, they will be triggered to defer to you
automatically. So, be sure to put ALL initials that
represent some degree of expertise next to your name.

If you are doing this for your website or business image,
you want to capture your expertise in a single phrase that
represent why people should do business with you. This can
be like voted best value for the money by Consumer
Magazine. Of course, only add that if it's true! You don't
want to be caught echoing some claim that later points out
that you clearly don't have any expertise and are a liar to
boot! So, be genuine, but also be sure to take pride in
your accomplishments. If you don't have any recognition
from others that you can point to, you can still raise the
audience's awareness of what makes your business special.
Maybe you are the biggest distributor on the East Coast for
your particular item. Maybe you make the most unique
ukuleles in Hawaii. Maybe you are the oldest company on
record for the business. Believe it or not, people hold a
great deal of respect for businesses that can say they've
been around for decades. Imagine if you could say that
about your online business where most have a habit of
disappearing overnight? It creates the image of tremendous
stability and also expertise in your area of commerce.

If you still can't think of anything, start by telling your
audience why you think your business or staff is special.
Maybe you think you have the best group of positive
thinkers on staff who find ways to make everyone's day
brighter. Maybe you sell environmentally-friendly profits
and for each sale you donate to a green cause. This can
make people think that you know about the issues important
to them and they can trust you as an expert because you
walk your talk.

So ask yourself a few questions to help you establish what
makes you or your business experts on your market niche:
What credentials do I have to prove our expertise? Are my
workers specially trained or gifted? How many years have
you been in business? What is your satisfaction rating for
customers? What separates your knowledge from your
competitors? What image should you be portraying to be
considered an expert? Am I or my company certified by any
outside agencies? Who else thinks you or your business is
expert in your market niche?

What do I know that no one else knows?

Once you have the answer to those questions, you can write
up articles and feed them to article directories. At the
end, in your author's bio box, you can add information on
who you are and your status as an expert. Either submit the
articles to directories yourself or hire a company to do it
for you. These article directories will show up in search
engines when someone searches for your company name or your
own name. If you have multiple different articles out there
under different directories, the search results on a search
engine will bring up so many results that you look like an
instant expert!

That's one way to get your name out there as an expert
fairly quickly. Another way is to visit forums and
discussion groups that are within your target niche. Add to
the discussions, when you can show off your knowledge and
increase your exposure online. If you keep coming back and
doing this, at least that audience will begin to equate
your name or your company's name as experts in a particular
field. And, that also will show up in search results from a
search engine.

Writing a book and putting it up on Amazon or some other
large distributor will also qualify you as an expert. It
used to be that you had to find a publisher to publish your
book to really be perceived a formally approved expert.
That's not the case anymore. Anyone can self-publish a book
and then submit it to online retailers for sale. You can
even do an eBook format and offer it for free in various
places and build your reputation that way too. Just make
sure your books contain reference to your website, your
products, and your own credentials.

Finally, you can ask to do guest posts to other people's
websites or solicit testimonials for your own website and
products. Guest posts on big blogs are particularly
effective because it builds traffic as well as allows you
to target your particular niche and convert it to sales.
And, major bloggers are always looking for guest posters
from noted experts so that they can take a break every now
and then from posting.

If you are on Facebook, the number and quality of friends
and social network that you build can add to your
reputation as an expert. If you have a network of 300
people who all are big names in your industry, that
automatically qualifies you as a big name too. It's
authority and expertise solely by association.

The time to self-promote is ALWAYS. It can't be said
enough. You might get tired of constantly re-iterating the
same catch phrases that note your expertise, but you don't
know what new prospects are coming in that will need that
reassurance. You want to do it when you are at other
people's sites, when you are not selling but rather
building a marketing presence online, and when you are
selling too. 

Almost every interaction you have should echo your
expertise so as to trigger that deep-seated desire to obey
the call to action later. You don't want to come off as
demanding, but simply showing you know your stuff and that
they can have a quiet confidence in your history,
knowledge, or products can be a great way to trigger the
desire to buy. 


To Your Success,
YOUR NAME

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