Self-help

Brick by Brick: How to Build Authority When You’re a Beginner

 

Brick by Brick

You must be thinking right now: I hope this blog post gives me something.

Trust me; I want to give you something.

One of the lessons I learned in the past seven years or so is that if you want to succeed even if you’re not good enough at something, you got to keep doing it.

You might have heard Michael Jordan’s quote, “I’ve failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”

Casey Neistat once said in a video, “You might not be the most successful person in the room, but you can always be the hardest working person in that room.”

The purpose isn’t to share inspirational quotes to motivate you, but instead, the idea is to share that what has helped me to get to this point where I don’t spend a moment to send cold emails to get hired.

Building an authority means you go one step up or you can also say that your hustle starts to pay off. However, I’m not against reaching out to the people; you got to try and work your way up to the level where you don’t need to do that. So do it.

I’m glad to share that being a blogger; you have to navigate through the hurdles, which I have been doing for a long time. I’d like to share with you all so that you could take something out of it and prepare yourself to win. What I primarily want to convey is that following are the things I have been doing for a very long time:

Writing Blogs

I have been writing blogs for last nine years. Although, the beginning wasn’t great as I had no idea what to write and where to begin from – so I ended up switching from one blog to another. The best part was that I found something I instantly fell in love with, which was blogging.

Guest Posting

I started off writing blogs in 2009, but I had no idea about guest posting until 2013. Later on, I figured out the importance of writing on someone else’s blog, and I ended up writing blog posts for others’ blogs too. I have never been a very active guest poster, though, but it’s something I have occasionally done over the past few years.

Building Relationships

I have been building relationships with bloggers and companies around the world since 2013. Nobody taught me this; I learned it on my own that you have to build a network of like-minded people who like to write or read blogs. Fast forward to 2018; now I understand that it’s a huge growth hacking technique and I preach that bloggers must build relationships online and offline.

Publishing Helpful Comments

I do regret that I didn’t know the importance of publishing healthy, positive, and useful comments in the first few years of my blogging career – I started paying attention to the commenting in 2016. Now, I try to read more blog posts and leave useful comments that could genuinely help someone.

Engaging with Others on Social Media

Just like comments, it’s something I should have started paying attention to a long time ago – but I have been very active on social media whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or YouTube. I try to put out content as well as consume others’ content. It often breaks the silence, and the discussion begins. In other words, I have been paying close attention to social media engagement for quite some time now.

Trying Out New Stuff Now and then

I have never sat back and relaxed as long as I remember: I have continuously been working on something new for a long time. I keep on testing new stuff because that’s how you learn and make things happen. I have published articles on LinkedIn and Medium; I upload videos on YouTube; I also post on Instagram. What I have learned so far is that you got to try out new stuff and find what you enjoy.

What’s the Point?

So the point is that I kept on going. I never thought that I’m wasting my time – perhaps I knew all along that consistency pays off, and it indeed did — meaning, I landed freelance writing clients throughout the years.

Also, I want to say that if I left a comment on Facebook or replied to someone else’s tweet, I gave my best answer, always.

If you want to build authority, I bet you need to be consistent, and besides a winning mindset, you have to be passionate about the thing you’re pursuing.

If you aren’t crazy about e-commerce, don’t start an e-store, but instead, try to figure out what you like.

I see a lot of bloggers who start off blogs without due diligence and end up quitting the whole blogging thing.

RELATED: How to Start a Blog with $75 or less

The truth is that if you want to become an authority, you better start loving your thing and put in the work and don’t expect quick results – that’s how I’m building authority.

Trust me.

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14 Comments

  1. It really is step by step Hassaan. We think of Jordan and his brilliance; best baller ever, and I have followed basketball religiously for almost 40 years. The guy was not good enough to make his varsity team as a young kid in high school. But he practiced like a mad man and kept at it, failing, missing clutch shots earlier in his career, and eventually became the most clutch AND great basketball player of all time. Love this post my friend.

    Ryan

    1. Hi Ryan,

      Thanks for stopping by and leaving your comment. One of the best lessons I learned so far is the “PROCESS” and eventually realized that you must keep moving forward, and things would start to unfold.

      I never realized how a random guest post or a Facebook comment led to an opportunity — this reminds me of your thesis of doing what you love and having fun.

      Thanks, again.

  2. Hassaan your blog is always of great inspirations. I always learn something new from it. And the best part is I instantly click on it and read the post when I see it on my NewsFeed on FB. I am proud to be a friend of yours. <3

    1. Hello Fahad,

      Thanks, man. Blogging is magical. You learn from others, make friends, and evolve together.

      Isn’t great?

  3. Hi Hassaan,

    When it comes to building authority you are spot on. It will take time, but time well spent. At first we struggle but follow our path and learn as we go on to perfect things like our content, commenting, and most important engaging with others.

    It is kind of magical sometimes making connections with people all over the planet with a similar mindset. We get to be close friends sometimes and even can do joint ventures. The possibilities are endless.

    -Donna

    1. Hi Donna,

      I agree with you. Mindset is a huge game changer. Blogging leads to meeting people with similar mindsets. The best part is that we learn from each other and try to share what know through our content.

      Building authority doesn’t mean the spike in visitors, page views, or things of that nature. What I think building authority means is that how deep your connection is with your audience. And, yes, it doesn’t happen in a jiffy, but instead, it takes time.

      Thanks, Donna, for your comment. I always love reading and responding to your comments.

  4. Hi Hassan,

    Patience and consistency is the key to success.

    Like an ant walking with sugar cube want to reach to the window. It falls thousands of times but never quit.

    It takes time to reach your goals and building authority is the same thing.

    You need to test many things, learn from your competitors, guest posting helps you and influencer relationship always pays in the long run.

    Thanks for sharing.

    1. Hi Gaurav,

      Patience and consistency are the must-have ingredients for success.

      I tried to share that how I kept on going and moving forward. I didn’t know much about blogging as an average beginner. It was the process that taught me everything, and it’s still showing me a lot of things that are worth learning.

      All the best.

  5. Hey Hassaan,
    As you’ve mentioned Medium, I have a question for you.

    I have about 15K followers on Medium. Actually, I don’t even know why they’ve followed me. Most probably, they are from my Twitter.

    The question is, what do you think about duplicating the blog post on the Medium? Is it OK or will Google penalize me for that.

    I have seen some huge bloggers do that. Do you have any idea about how duplicating content affects the SEO.

    If Medium had a canonical link option, there will be no problem no?

    Thanks!

    1. Hi Nirodha,

      You can republish your content on Medium. Make sure to link to your original blog post in the Medium post. Perhaps, it’s not necessary, but a lot of experts prefer to do that. Not only does it help guide the search engines, but it also brings attention to the blog.

      Moreover, there is an official Medium tool for importing the blog post directly: https://medium.com/p/import

      Try that out and let me know if that helps.

      1. Hey Hassaan,

        Thank you very much for the tip. Honestly, I didn’t know about this tool. It is great.

        I asked the same question, duplicating content on LinkedIn from Ravi (blogginglove.com) coz, he is a LinkedIn expert.

        He says, rewriting the article is better than publishing the same content on LinkedIn.

        Thanks again.

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