Blogging Success Means Becoming the Expert Not the Reporter

Blogging Success Means Becoming the Expert Not the Reporter

There are basically two types of bloggers in the world – reporters and experts – and some people perform both roles (usually the experts, it’s hard for reporters to become experts, but it’s easy for experts to report). Becoming an expert is crucial to make money online.

If you have ever taken an Internet marketing course or attended a webinar specifically for novices, you have probably heard about the two different beliefs. Whenever the business model is based on content, and if you earn an online income then the model is based on content, people are taught to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.

I’ll be brief, you need to be the expert.

Reporters leverage the content of the experts and in most instances people begin off as reporters because they haven’t established expertise.  Experts enjoy the perks of preeminence, increased income because of perceived value, it’s easier to get publicity, people are more likely to find you rather than you having to seek others out, joint ventures come easier, etc. experts in most cases simply have higher incomes and attract more publicity.

Most Bloggers Just Report

The thing with expertise is that it requires something – experience. No person becomes an expert without doing things and learning.  Bloggers routinely start out with little expertise and as a result begin their blogging journey by talking about everything going on in their niche (reporting) and by reporting on and speaking with other successful bloggers (reporting again).

There’s nothing wrong with reporting of course and for many bloggers it’s a necessity in the beginning until you build some expertise.  Unfortunately the ratios are skewed when it pertains to reporters and experts – there are a lot more reporters than experts, hence reporters tend to struggle to gain publicity and when they do, they often just help the reputation of the expert they are reporting about.

Don’t Duplicate Your Teacher

If you have ever spent some time researching products about the Work from Home niche you will notice a pattern.  Many people first study affiliate marketing from a mentor (for lack of a better term). The guru teaches how he or she is able to make money online, and very often the view that the student gleams is that in order to make money blogging you have to teach others how to make money online.

The end result of this process is a huge army of amateur writers trying to duplicate what their teacher does in the same industry – the Internet marketing niche – not realizing that without expert status based on proven experience and all the perks that come with it, it’s next to difficult to succeed.

Even people, who enjoy marginal success, say for example growing an email list of 1,000 people, then go out and release a product about how to grow an contact list of 1,000 people. Now I have no problems with this idea, I think it’s fine to train novices and leverage whatever achievements you have, the problem is that people gravitate to the same industry – affiliate marketing - and rarely can be differentiated.

How many products out there do you know of that all claim to teach the same things – email marketing, SEO, pay per click, affiliate marketing, and all the niches that fall under the category of Internet marketing. It’s a crowded niche, yet when you listen to your teachers and other gurus making money teaching others how to make money online (and let’s face it – making money from home as a subject is one of the most compelling) – your first inclination is to follow in their footsteps.

If the goal is to identify yourself as an expert and you have not spent the past 5-10 years making money online, I suggest you look for another subject to establish expertise in.

Give it time and stick with what you do to learn and then translate that training into training for others, and remember, it’s okay to be a big fish in a small pond, that’s all most experts really are.

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