How can online posting affect your sales-ability?

Credibility is earned over time by your actions that others can observe. If you post on blogs, forums, tweets, and social media updates, make sure that your posts are intelligent, helpful, and relevant because they will be indexed and available to the search engines forever. The quality of the posts you make will help reinforce your ability to be known and trusted as an expert in your field when you are trying to sell your product or services.

Common courtesy should be the rule while not losing sight of the reason you are taking the time to post. Write for your target audience with knowledgeable and helpful tips while keeping in mind your search word phrases for SEO.

A few of my favorite posting and etiquette tips for online writing are:

• Become familiar with the blogsite or forum before you post. Just like entering any new conversation, don’t just barge in until you have determined that you can add to the community interests and enhance the conversation.
• Do not blatantly try to sell your product or service. Contribute to the conversation in a manner that demonstrates your expertise and allow your signature line link-back to work for you.
• Make sure that your sig-line link-back has a relevant landing page at the other end. If you are talking about one subject but your link-back goes to a site promoting something totally un-related to the conversation, you will appear to be baiting your readers.
• Write in a conversational and easy to read compositional style. Use short paragraphs, bullet points, and headers.
• Search for other posts covering the same topic prior to posting. This goes even for your own blog. A comment in an existing thread may be more appropriate than a new post.
• Don’t get too personal and stay on topic.
• Reserve your posting to when you have something relevant to add to the conversation. Don’t be a “me too”.

These are 7 tips that I think about frequently. There are many more good tips you can learn with a little search effort.

Regular online posting can earn lots of “Google Juice” while at the same time build your reputation as an expert in your field, thus increasing your “sales-ability”. Set aside a few minutes every day to post online. It’s a marketing effort that returns quality long-term results.