photo credit: Xelcise

One of the goals of using article writing in your marketing strategy is to brand yourself as an expert in your particular niche.

However, when you write about a number of topics you can actually dilute your “expert” status if you author them all the same. For example, say you are a real estate investor and you write regular articles related to the field of real estate investment to help drive traffic to your website.

On the side, you also have a passion for organic gardening and running. You begin to write some articles based on these other interests of yours and figure it won’t hurt to submit them to the article directories too. When you submit these articles for organic gardening and running under the same author profile that you created for real estate investment, you begin to dilute your expert status in real estate investing. As a reader, I’ve come to recognize and associate your name with quality information on real estate investing.

Now when I want more content from you, I might search to see what other articles you’ve written. My search shows these new hits on organic gardening and running – not at all what I’m interested in. I begin to wonder if you’ve changed your focus and are moving away from real estate investing. Your credibility as an expert in real estate investing begins to diminish because I’ve now begun to associate you with these other niches.

So what can you do?

Use a different pen name for each niche that you write about. You don’t have to stray too far from your real name, and shouldn’t. Many article directories have rules about using fictitious names. Make sure the pen names you use are still a variation of your real name. For example, John Thomas Doe could use the following pen names: J. Thomas Doe, John T. Doe, J.T. Doe, John Thomas, J. Doe. You get the idea. Now John Thomas Doe can be an expert in real estate investing, J.T. Doe can specialize in organic gardening, and J. Thomas Doe can write about running. This method will also help you track the effectiveness of your writing for each niche since results for each author can appear separately in your traffic reports. You’ll be able to more easily see which articles or niche had the most article views, author views, clicks, and links.