Google Knol Lets You Showcase Your Expertise

If you’ve ever used Squidoo or Hub Pages, then you’ll have some idea of what Google Knol is and how it works. Like those web 2.0 properties, Knol is a place where users can gather and let the world know what they know.

What Knol does is lets users join the site and then write content about a topic. You can write under any topic as long as it doesn’t violate the terms of use. You can write pages yourself or you can let others also add their knowledge to the page.

To write Knol pages, you must be already have a Google account (if you don’t, it’s easy to sign up for one) and once you register to use Knol, you’re ready to begin writing your content.

Getting content set up is a little easier in Knol because you can just take what you’ve typed up already and import it into the site. Write the content based on what you know or what you’ve learned and are now a contributing expert at.

Why would you want to showcase your expertise on Google Knol? Because you can get traffic directed to your main website by using Knol. Once again, it’s using the power of a bigger online presence to get a smaller one noticed.

On top of writing content, you get to have a user profile, which is visible to the public and gets you noticed but also helps you promote your website by using a hyperlink. Writing articles on your Knol pages gives you a solid reputation in whatever niche you’re in and helps others to see you as a credible source.

As a marketer, you can bet that some people are quick to check you out to see if you’re on the up and up before they buy your product. When they see that you’ve written articles for numerous places including Knol, it helps them think of you as a real person with nothing to hide – and it builds trust in what you’re offering on your website.

You may have heard talk about Google’s ‘no follow’ policy for their pages. That means that the spider bots ignore the pages in some cases. However, once you’ve used Knol for awhile, your content is considered helpful and you’ve built a decent reputation, Google will allow your page to be changed from a no follow to a follow. With the authority of Google behind it, you can just imagine how high that will get your page ranked!