Having credibility means having expertise in something, and a lot of experience that others have been a part of. In no way is this road an easy one, it’s certainly a path that is fulfilling and rewarding, and not many other things stand close to grabbing a pen and writing down your streams of thoughts.

It has been a little bit over a year since I labeled myself as a writer, I had written content before, but not as professionally as I do now. In that year so far, I have learned so many things and have come a long way to finally look at my writing and realize myself that progress has been made. The writing style and voice matures over time and it comes with a wonderful feeling of achievement.

Being a professional writer means that you write for others to enjoy or learn from. Our own, personal diary writing is going to differ a lot from that what we writing professionally. That is the reason I have put the word professional in the title.

How-To Build Credibility as a Professional Writer

The best writing happens when we do it spontaneously, without any expectations.

Write

Get over it, and start writing. Haven’t got an idea? No problem, take a piece of paper and a pen – start writing every single thing that comes to your mind. There is no other way around it, so take your time and do it. After a couple of paragraphs you can pause and go over what you have just written. It probably talks about something specific, a subject or a topic. Take that tiny idea and turn it into something bigger, act upon it.

It’s really not that hard to do it. I constantly had issues with writing where I would take breaks that seem really long, but now I have learned that if you want to do it – do it right, every time. The best thing is that your writing starts to mature and you really see that progress happening.

Blog

If you happen to be a writer, it’s probably a good time you consider starting a blog, to gain experience writing in front of an audience, no matter how small or big it might be. Writing in a journal is something completely different from writing in a blog that lets people see your voice.

When I first started blogging half-way decently on my WordPress.com blog, I found it so hard to continue without having moments of second thoughts, thinking if I should have said that what I did say in my post. Eventually, I deleted all of the posts I had on this blog. Never going to make the same mistake again :)

Research

It’s not all about writing, there needs to be reading involved too, especially if we want to expand our point of views and knowledge of language. Research means interest and passion for something. I used to think that liking other bloggers was bad and that I should focus only on my website, that was a good 6 years ago, so don’t drop the jaw just yet.

It’s good to be a part of different communities, it helps you learn more about that what you want to learn about, as well as give a different perspective on something.

For every article, idea or post put on paper (or on your blog), you should try and read two posts from other resources.

Build Relationships

Build them so they last, and help you along the way. For myself, I live in a city that is fairly far away from anything like local communities of bloggers, or programming clubs. This is why I create relationships online. These relationships help me build a better blog and expose my brand more, but it’s not only about that. Sometimes relationships turn into real friendships and there is that saying that a lot more can be achieved when two people have put the mind to the same thing.

Don’t be afraid to approach people and other bloggers, it won’t kill you!

Help Communities

The last thing I would like to mention on building a credibility as a professional bloggers is that being part of communities and groups of like minded people really helps to see the bigger picture much, much easier. Almost all of the big social networks have got some kind of groups or community pages available where you can discuss your passions at large.

For a list of website good for raising awareness and gaining momentum please take a look in my link building article I wrote a little while ago.

That is pretty much everything I wanted to cover in this article, maybe in future when my own writing continues to improve and mature – I will feel inspired to create and updated version :)