Web Based PR: Communicating Your Expertise to Your Market Via the Web

The Expert's Guide to Using Hyperlinks

I’ve been thinking a lot about hyperlinks lately. You're probably asking: “How can anyone possibly think about hyperlinks, much less write about them in an inspiring way?”

I’m going to give it my best shot – because using hyperlinks properly is crucial, if you want your website or blog to be considered really important.

The creative use of hyperlinks can turn your website or blog from a flat, “just the facts, ma’am” brochure-type site, into a rich, vibrant informational port: a site that people will want to visit again and again; a place they will visit whenever they want to learn about the latest, or the “last word,” in your area of expertise. And once they consider your website a “go-to place,” they’ll consider YOU to be “THE expert.”

In my posting on “Experts’ Blogs and Websites,” I cautioned you to have links on your site that are both “informative” and “inspired”; in other words, links to important information that only a real expert in your field would know about.

But, this is just the tip of the hyperlink iceberg.

First, a brief definition. Hyperlinks provide an easy way to link to any other information that can be found online. They can be used to emphasize or prove an important point; or to link to an article you, or another expert you respect, have written. Hyperlinks can also lead your readers/visitors to other forms of online media, such as audios and videos.  For a complete description of what hyperlinks are, and how they can be used, click here. (This link to Wikipedia is, by the way,  an example of a hyperlink!)

For our purposes (i.e., using hyperlinks in ways that will proclaim your expertise), I will concentrate on four ways that hyperlinks can make your site a “must visit” place. And, I will point out how each use of hyperlinks will play its own part in helping you to proclaim your expertise in an informative, subtle manner, without “screaming” that you're an expert.

1) Having plenty of LINKS to other websites that you feel complement, or add to, the information on your site.

For example, one of the most popular intellectual property law blogs, PatentlyO, contains links to several other intellectual property websites and blogs, which the site’s creator, Dennis Crouch, feels are important for anyone who is interested in intellectual property law. (See the left hand side of his page, under “friends.”) By reading this expert’s site, and spending time on the sites he links to, you will get a real education in intellectual property law. You’ll find yourself returning to his site – and those he links to – over and over. Similarly, to learn about the malfeasance of the pharmaceutical industry, visit one of my favorite healthcare advocacy websites, Vera Sharav’s Alliance for Human Research Protection. After spending hours reading the articles there, explore the other advocacy sites she links to.  You’ll be amazed at how quickly you'll become educated about this topic.

Some sites will have various KINDS or categories of links to other experts’ sites. For instance, Dr. Aubrey Blumsohn’s excellent expert’s blog, The Scientific Misconduct Blog, has a section titled “Links,” as well as sections titled “Cases” and “Journals.” All are worth exploring.

NOTE: If you are a member of a larger company or firm, you may be using a ready-made template for your personal site. And your template may NOT have a section for links to other sites. In a case like this, ask your firm’s webmaster if he or she can set up a special LINKS section for you. If not, perhaps you will be allowed create a blog or other website, which will have all the individualized features you need, to which you can link from your official “firm site.”

If you link to other experts, some will also link to you, building your collegiality and your renown. However, you may have read articles about “reciprocal links,” where you link to another person’s website or blog ONLY IF they link to yours (and vice versa). These are often called “love links,” and frankly, I am not a fan of this practice. The reason people want lots of links to their sites is that, so the theory goes, the more people who link to your site, the higher you will be in the search engine (read Google) rankings. While there may be some truth to this belief, I think you will be making a huge mistake if you link to a website for the sole purpose of getting a reciprocal link.  I have received link requests from some of the most unlikely sources for my medical advocacy website, www.HonestMedicine.com. I almost never accept these offers – mainly because they usually don’t make sense to me. Also, I don’t want regular visitors to my site, who have come to respect my postings and my links, to be led astray this way.

2) Links to your own, and other experts’, important articles

As an expert, you’ve probably written articles that have been published in professional or lay publications. But don’t just list them by title and publication; link to the articles themselves! People who are visiting your website because they are really interested in your area of expertise don’t want to just see that you’ve written articles (although this fact alone is surely impressive). They’ll want to read some of your actual articles. One wonderful thing about the Internet is that – via hyperlinks – you can make this easy for them.

In my experience, the rule of thumb is that you may safely link to any article (or audio or video) that is already online. However, if an article you have written is NOT online, it can be a bit trickier. In this case, contact the publisher directly and request permission to publish the article on your site, preferably in the exact format (usually pdf) in which it was actually published, complete with page numbers and masthead. Many publishers will agree to this. After all, you’ll be giving them free publicity, as well.

Many people report that they have gotten business (read “new clients”) from this simple practice of linking to their own published articles. We all want to work with experts, right? And by giving people (including potential clients) an opportunity to learn about your expertise firsthand, through your own published writings, you are giving them a much fuller picture of you, “the expert.” If you are someone else’s employee, you may even find yourself getting job offers, since many employers are now “googling” to find new hires.

3) Using hyperlinks effectively within your own articles and blog postings, to add credibility to important points.

As an expert, you’ll often want to cite other articles or books, as a way of adding emphasis and credibility to specific points you are making. In scholarly writings, you’d use footnotes. But on a website or blog, hyperlinks serve a similar purpose, but will also allow your visitors to access those articles or that book instantaneously, with a simple mouse click. The fact that people can actually see the articles you are referring to, while they are reading your posting, can make a tremendous difference in how readily they accept the point you are making.

And when the point you are making is controversial, hyperlinks can be particularly effective in helping to convince your readers.

For instance, in my HonestMedicine review of SiCKO, Michael Moore’s controversial film about healthcare, after praising Moore for taking insurance companies to task for their greed, I criticized him for ignoring the greed of many physicians who are financially indebted to drug companies. Rather than simply accusing doctors of taking money or gifts from pharmaceutical companies, I linked to three articles that had appeared in the press, that made this point for me. For yet more emphasis, I found (and linked to) three more articles that went even further, testifying to the fact that many drug companies hire doctors and universities to conduct their so-called "trials," and then pay them to write articles about how successfully these "trials" turned out – even if they didn’t. Together, these six hyperlinks added a much higher level of credibility to my assertion than simply making my accusation, or even naming the articles, could ever have done.

More recently, in another controversial HonestMedicine posting, I highlighted four safe, inexpensive treatments that have stood the test of time, but which American doctors have shunned, in favor of some highly toxic pharmaceuticals. While lots of people have written about Big Pharma’s influence on our doctors’ prescribing habits, how many times have you heard doctors themselves actually admit to this influence – as in: “yes, I prescribe these harmful drugs because pharmaceutical companies pay me to do this”?

While researching one of these lifesaving treatments, the Ketogenic Diet (a diet that has been helpful to children with epilepsy for over 70 years), I was told about an NBC Dateline video, in which a pediatric neurologist made some startling admissions: that he had known about the diet for years; that it had been used at a reputable medical institution for decades; but that he had neglected to recommend it to these parents, in his own words, “because . . . there were actually still other medications that we hadn’t tried yet.”

But this doctor went even further, and admitted that doctors ignore this diet because “there’s no big drug company behind [it], and there probably can never be unless somebody starts marketing sausage and eggs with cream sauce on it as a drug.”

Simply quoting this doctor would not have had the same impact as linking to the actual video.  We might say that, in this case, “a hyperlink is worth a thousand words!”  Many people told me that actually watching the video, and hearing the doctor utter these words, had a very dramatic effect. This hyperlink told the story in a way nothing else could have done.

This is the power of the hyperlinks, used effectively.

4) This same technique can be used in the comments you leave on other people’s blogs.

You’ll find that, just as your website or blog will have added power with the effective use of hyperlinks, they can also add power to your blog comments. In my posting, “What Makes a Blog Comment Great?”, I linked to a “white paper”, that gives some really detailed information on how I have used hyperlinks in my comments on other people’s blogs.  I invite you to read it.

You will find other examples of the effective use of hyperlinks in blog comments in "HonestMedicine on the Blogs”.
 

Experts’ Blogs and Websites

The first thing you’ll want to do in order to become known as an expert on the web is to have a website or blog that proclaims your expertise.

Some of you will be surprised to learn that I strongly believe that most people who are looking for real information online will not be as impressed by a site’s snappy design – complete with lots of bells, whistles and moving objects -- as much as they will be impressed by the caliber of the information your site provides.

Questions to Ask Yourself

• Is my site newsworthy? Does it contain good, solid information?

• Are my articles well-written?

• Are my links not only informative, but inspired? (In other words, does my site contain links to important information that I had to dig for – i.e., that only a real expert would know about?)

Ironically, the size of the site’s organization is often NOT indicative of the caliber of the information the site provides. In fact, I have found that often, a large organization – probably because there are so many people who must approve all the information that ends up being posted – will not always have the level of information contained on a site owned and maintained by one or two experts!

Some Examples of Experts' Websites

For instance, one of my favorite expert websites is The Annie Appleseed Project, owned by the indefatigable Ann Fonfa, who calls herself – very accurately, I might add - “a woman with breast cancer and an attitude.” Ann is an over-14-year survivor of breast cancer, who has kept herself alive (she would rather say “thriving”) through almost constant research on available treatments, both alternative and conventional. She is passionate about sharing all this information with her site’s visitors. And she is proud of the fact that nearly 6000 groups, companies and organizations link to the site.

Take a look at Ann's site, and you’ll see why. There is so much information, neatly categorized for easy use, that it’s no wonder she has a national reputation – all because of the work she has put in to this un-fancy, but excellent, website.

Ditto, Vera Sharav’s wonderful Alliance for Human Research Protection website and blog, started and maintained by a woman with a wealth of knowledge in another health-related field: the protection of human medical research subjects. One look at both her information-filled site and blog, which contain much of the same information, will reveal WHY she is so well known as an advocate. (She has been quoted in many publications, including the Wall Street Journal.)

Vera’s blog, by the way, is partially maintained by another extremely important expert, Dr. Aubrey Blumsohn, whose own blog, the Scientific Misconduct Blog, is another example of sharing very important (and in Aubrey’s case, very personal) information with the public.

So, remember, information first. Design, bells, whistles and moving objects later (if at all). But your web presence must confidently proclaim that you are an expert.

Blog Comments Go to the Next (Web 2.0++) Level!!

As regular visitors to both of my blogs know, I am a huge proponent of leaving information-packed, compelling comments on other people’s blogs, as a way of marketing your own expertise. As I have written before (here and here, for example), my comments have brought lots of recognition to my medical advocacy blog, www.HonestMedicine.com, including:

• Articles and blog postings that have been written about HonestMedicine

• Winning an award from the wonderful folks at Health Central

              and

• Being quoted in an article that was syndicated nationwide. (Only the abstract of the article itself may be found on the Chicago Tribune website -- see previous link). But, a few examples of how the article appeared in syndication are here, here and here.)

Recently, a comment I left on the Wall Street Journal's small business blog, Independent Street, brought a wonderful, very new kind of response! Brent Leary, the business consultant who was featured in the WSJ posting, titled "What's Your Google Quotient?," gave my comment (and me –- and by extension, my blogs) special recognition in two places:

• In an article Brent wrote ("Win Friends and Influence People, Version 2.0") for BlackEnterprise.com

But, for me, this is the truly exciting part:

• Brent showcased my comment in his regular radio show, “Technology for Business Sake,” a weekly radio program heard on 1160am in Atlanta, as well as on BusinessTechnologyRadio.com.

First, you may read Brent’s article (the link is above), in which he wrote that my comment exemplified Dale Carnegie’s maxim, "Make The Other Person Feel Important and Do It Sincerely":

Here is what Brent wrote about my comment:

"I was recently featured in a short post on The Wall Street Journal’s blog where I talked about a few ways to raise your "Google Quotient." It was nice to have my opinions featured like that, but the real pleasure for me was provided by Julia Schopick. I had never met, e-mailed, or spoken with Julia, but that didn’t stop her from thanking the WSJ folks for writing about me. Apparently after reading that post she Googled my name, found my blog, and learned of a service I wrote about that helped her provide better service to her clients. She didn’t have to do that as I am a complete stranger to her, but her doing so really made me feel great. And I let her know so by leaving a comment on her blog."

I was SO touched!

And here is what Brent said about my comment on his radio show. (Brent, I hope you won’t mind that I edited your very kind comment about me from the larger audio file! But I do encourage people to listen to your entire show online at the above link.)

Thanks, Brent, for taking the beauty of leaving blog comments to a new – Web 2.0 level!

♣ To learn more about Web 2.0, read this article by Tim O’Reilly, the person who coined the phrase in 2005.

♣ Other Articles About Leaving Comments on Other People’s Blogs: 

♦ Honest Medicine on the Blogs

♦ Why Communicate With Your Market Via the Web?

♦ What Makes a Blog Comment Great?

♦ Is the Timing of Your Blog Comments REALLY So Important?

♣ Brent's Company Website: CRM-Essentials.com

♣ Brent's Company Blog

This Month, WebBasedPR Is Proud to Feature SIX of Its Most Popular Articles and Interviews:

1) NEW!! Is the TIMING of Your Blog Comments Really So Important? - Lots of people are finally starting to realize the value of commenting on other people’s blogs. But unfortunately, they overemphasize the importance of being the first to comment, often at the expense of leaving comments of real value. Lots more.

2) NEW!! What Makes a Blog Comment Great? - If you want the comments you leave on other people’s blogs to be really great, they must have certain characteristics; the most important is that they must ADD significantly to the conversation.

3) Julia Schopick a Featured Speaker for Office Depot’s Online Web Café - I had the honor of being featured as the guest expert on a recent Office Depot online Web Café, Showcasing Your Expertise Via the Web, where I was interviewed by the wonderful Nancy Michaels of Nancy Direct. Learn more about this Web Café and listen to it online.

4) Experts’ Blogs and Websites – What Makes an “Expert’s Website”? - If you’re an expert, what features should your website or blog have? Read this article to find out.

5) Why Communicate With Your Market Via the Web? – Be ahead of the curve by learning about cutting edge techniques for reaching your target market(s) through online conversation.

6) Who Is Your Target Market? The Most Important Question for the Expert to Answer Before Beginning Promotional Efforts – How to know who your ideal customers and clients are BEFORE you start your marketing efforts!

Is the TIMING of Your Blog Comments Really So Important?

In a previous post, “What Makes a Blog Comment Great?”, I outlined the ingredients that go into writing really compelling blog comments that will:

(a) give readers new information
(b) bring them to your blog or website
(c) keep them coming back to your site, so that they will hopefully become regular visitors, so that
(d) they’ll continue to learn new things

In that posting, I also provided a link to an article, “HonestMedicine on the Blogs,” posted on my medical advocacy blog, so you could actually read some recent examples of my blog comments that have gotten lots of attention. I hope you will think the comments themselves are worth reading, and that you will get lots of ideas about writing your own blog comments, so that more people will come to your site or blog, and that they will feel they have gotten valuable information there.

Now, I’d like to discuss one characteristic of commenting on other people’s blogs that I did NOT discuss in my earlier post:

The Timing of Your Blog Comments

It is always best if your comments appear among the first ten or so, because people often stop reading after a certain point. Writing a well-crafted, information-packed comment early on would be the best possible situation -- “in the best of all possible worlds.”

So, why didn’t I include this point in my earlier posting? Because I am very concerned that timing NOT be your primary concern when leaving comments. I was worried that people would start RUSHING to post their comments, and that, as a result, there would be lots of half-baked, typo-filled comments that would simply not represent you, your expertise, OR your blog or website in the best way possible.

BUT, when you do have the good fortune of being able to leave a blog comment that is well thought out, thought-provoking, well-written, well-expressed and written EARLY (“the best of all possible worlds” again!), the results can be astoundingly wonderful.

Recently, I had this kind of good fortune on the New York Times Well Blog, one of my very favorites. I love this blog because its moderator, Tara Parker-Pope (also a writer for the Times’ Tuesday Science Section), in addition to being an excellent writer and very “up” on the current health concerns, is extremely bright, open and curious. She goes out of her way to make everyone feel welcome on this blog, and even adds her own comments at opportune times -- without making anyone feel embarrassed or silly for their opinions. (I wonder if Ms. Parker-Pope was ever a teacher. I think she would have been a darned good one!)

On Friday, January 11th (2008), Ms. Parker-Pope posted, “Medical Googlers, Part 2”, a terrific follow-up to an earlier (November 19, 2007) posting on the topic, “A Doctor’s Disdain for Medical ‘Googlers’”. I don’t want to share too many details here, since I think that both postings AND the original Time.com and Salon.com articles on which they are based, are really fascinating, and well worth reading. I urge you to do so! (Ms. Parker-Pope has included the links to both these articles, as well.)

As a person who feels that my medical Googling literally added a good 10 years to my husband Tim’s life, after his brain tumor diagnosis in 1990, I was naturally offended by the original doctor who started all this fuss. (You’ll have to read the blog postings to learn his name. I don’t want to give him the publicity!) He called his googling patient all sorts of names and was, in general, very insulting.

So, I spent several hours writing a comment that I felt proud of. Sadly, it was #249. Frankly, I wish that I had finished it earlier, but I didn’t. And I thought that, since my aim is to help people with my expertise, of course, I posted it anyway. AND, the wonderful thing is that several people read it. How do I know this? Because lots of people linked to my blog from it. (Some are still linking from it.) And you can really bet that those who did link –- don’t forget, they read through at least 249 comments! –- really cared about the topic of googling, and liked the things I said in that comment. And I will bet -– at least, I hope! -- that lots of them are still regular visitors to HonestMedicine.com, where I hope they are still finding interesting information! (Another thing I love about this “Well” blog is that Parker-Pope leaves her postings open for comments for a long time. This one is still open. I just checked, and as of yesterday, there were 335 comments. I’ll have to go back and read the more recent ones!)

But when "Medical Googlers, Part 2" was published, for some reason, not so many people commented at first. In fact, I would almost call it a “sleeper,” since only eight people, I among them, responded on the Friday it was posted. I call the posting a “sleeper,” because people are still commenting today –- four days later. Now, there now are 60 comments –- so far! (And on February 11th, one month after the publication of this posting, there were 92 comments!)

But this time, my comment was #5. And people have been coming to check out my blog in droves. I’m delighted.

But the most important thing is that I feel that I added something important to the conversation, and that I feel proud of the information I added.

The great thing about taking the time to write blog comments that you feel proud of (and passionate about), and leaving them on blogs that you feel are quality blogs, is that you are reaching people who have a genuine interest in the topics you are writing about. And, here is something that most people don’t even think about: If you have left quality comments that people are interested in reading (and get something from), you may have an opportunity to reuse portions of what you wrote somewhere else -- perhaps way down the road -- in blog postings of your own, or in magazine or ezine articles. Or perhaps, someday, even in a book!

May, 2007: WebBasedPR’s Featured Articles and Interviews

This month, WebBasedPR is proud to feature 4 of its most popular articles and interviews:

1) Julia Schopick a Featured Speaker for Office Depot’s Online Web Café – I had the honor of being featured as the guest expert on a recent Office Depot online Web Café, Showcasing Your Expertise Via the Web, where I was interviewed by the wonderful Nancy Michaels of Nancy Direct. Learn more about this Web Café and listen to it online.

2) Why Communicate With Your Market Via the Web? – Be ahead of the curve by learning about cutting edge techniques for reaching your target market(s) through online conversation.

3) Who Is Your Target Market? The Most Important Question for the Expert to Answer Before Beginning Promotional Efforts – How to know who your ideal customers and clients are BEFORE you start your marketing efforts!

4) Experts’ Blogs and Websites – What Makes an “Expert’s Website”? What features should it have? Read this article to find out.

Julia Schopick a Featured Speaker for Office Depot’s Online Web Café

I had the honor of being featured as the guest speaker on a recent Office Depot online Web Café, Showcasing Your Expertise Via the Web, where I was interviewed by the wonderful Nancy Michaels of Nancy Direct.

Among the Topics We Covered:

• Why online public relations is one of the best ways to showcase your expertise to your market

• How to utilize Web-based PR techniques effectively -- on websites and blogs

•  Actual Web-based PR techniques, including interviews with experts, and comments left on blogs

• Differences and similarities between websites and blogs

• What kind of website or blog should an expert have?

• Why leaving comments on other people’s blogs is so powerful

• How to decide which blogs are the right ones for leaving your comments

• What is SPAM? -- and how to avoid spamming

AND MORE!!

Listen to the audio and watch the slides

Read the highlights of the presentation

ENJOY!