Build Your Personal Brand and Career by Being Featured in Expert Interviews

In my latest LinkedIn article I was talking about building your personal brand and how that will build your career (so you never have to look for a job!)

With opening MyBlogU.com for the public beta testing, I have another tip to add to that: Get featured in expert interviews and thus give your personal brand a boost!

• Getting featured in expert interviews positions you as the authority (even if you are less known than your neighbors on the list)
• Getting cited in the expert interviews creates a high-quality co-citation for web pages associated with you (as you are cited next to recognized trusted individuals in your niche)
• Finally, participating in group interviews puts you in the center of the relevant discussion and sends all kinds of positive signals to both search engines and people allowing you to connect to niche influencers and get discovered as well!

Here are the three things you should do to increase your chances to get included into expert interviews by high-profile bloggers:

1. Work on your "About me" page

The first basic step (and something that keeps being pushed down my to-do list as well) is to work on your about pages.

You must have heard of the new Google Quality Rating Guide (if not, check this article and the video). Google is putting huge emphasis on your "About" page nowadays: They encourage their human reviewers to always check this page when trying to determine if the article has really been written by an expert and if it really deserves ranking higher. It's an obvious sign that Google is trying to build those signals into the algorithm (and hence they are using human reviewers to tell how well the machine is doing).

Besides, most people who may consider pitching you for an interview, will most surely check the page out as well, so be sure to include:

• Your expertise and experience in the relevant niche(s)
• Where you were featured (guest columns, interviews, mentions, etc)
• The fact that you are open to interview opportunities and what's the best way to contact you
• Conferences where you spoke (as well as topics)
• Your social media profiles and why people may want to follow you
• Your articles you are most proud of or, even better, your books
• Projects you participates in
• Your forum profiles where you participate often
• Pictures people may use when talking about you

Don't advertise yourself but do show off your expertise: You deserve that! Here are some more creative examples of awesome "About us" pages.

2. Participate in Twitter Chats

Taking part in the relevant Twitter chat is my favorite way to get to know niche influencers. It's very educational too as people tend to go above and beyond to stand out in the chat, so they share their best tips and insights.

I have put all the best-known Twitter chats in the Internet Marketing industry into a handy Google Calendar (which you can also import to your iPhone calendar). That's a nice way to stay on top of those!

Keep an eye on those Twitter chats that have "Interview" format, especially those that post announcements and/or summaries on their blogs - Another mention of your name!

Our #VCBuzz is a good example!

3. Use HARO and MyBlogU

HARO has been around for ages. The great thing about it is that it's used by huge online publishers and journalists.

The drawback is that you'll hardly ever hear back (even if you get featured), so you may burn out quickly (I did a few times!). Still, it's a must-have tool (get emails: You don't have to check all of them!)

MyBlogU "Interviews" feature is quickly getting traction as it's very easy and nicely-scaled (still working on making the process easier and clearer!)

You can browse the database of the available interview requests, check the blogs and answer any question on the spot: If you do it a couple of times a week, you are sure to get some features quite frequently!

MyBlogU tracks all the deadlines and statuses, so you can focus on answering part and not worry about the rest. It stores all your ideas as well in case you want refer to any at any point. I also described the feature in more detail here.

Any more tips? Expert interview success stories? Please share them in the comments!