So, you want to start a blog but you aren’t exactly the world’s #1 authority on the subject. Relax, neither was I!  And neither were most bloggers.  You gain expertise by blogging and learning through your experience.

Ideal Me has lots of categories, and I’m by no means an expert in every single one of them.  So, why even have them?

Well, they’re all serious interests of mine.  

Starting a blog gives you an opportunity to pursue something you’re passionate about.  You don’t have to know everything there is to know about your niche right off the bat.

With that said, I do have 3 Tips For Blogging When You’re Not An Expert to help you kick things off on the right foot.

The best part about a blog is it gives you an outlet to document your own journey.  

These key tips for blogging will simply elevate your content so that you can curate a rich, detailed, and valuable experience for readers.

Craft a Unique Story

People may come to your blog because they have a mutual interest or need.  But they often stay because of the personality.  So, weave yours in! Blogging is all about the journey and the story. People like finding others they can relate to, so crafting your own unique story will help readers connect with your blog and experience.

The audience loves real people, so really be candid about where you’re at in your own journey with whatever your niche is.  

The key question is “why?”  Why is your niche, be it food, crafts, fitness — whatever — a passion of yours?  Why are you compelled to create an entire blog around it?

What’s your experience with it?  What are you looking to accomplish by blogging about it?

If you aren’t an expert yet, then that’s part of your story. And there are plenty of people out there who want to share your journey with you.  For example, I started Ideal Me because I really believe that it's possible to design your ideal life and I wanted to share my journey with my readers and hopefully help them map their lives out too.

Use Content Curation

After you’ve established your story and that you aren’t an expert, you might be stumped at how to provide valuable content to your audience.  

Not to fear: content curation will become your best friend.

Content curation is basically a list post.  It’s a round-up of similar items from other sites that your readers might find interesting or useful.  

We’re huge fans of content curation at Ideal Me, and we use it frequently.  

Posts like our 21 Low Carb Paleo Breads That Are Actually Delicious and 20 Awesome Crochet Blanket Patterns for Beginners are both examples of content curation.  

Content curation is a great option if you feel like you aren’t ready to create original content.

They’re fast to make and audiences love list posts.  It’s also great because it sends traffic to other bloggers’ posts as well.  

Always credit each blog that you include in your list posts.  This way, you send traffic their way and show your readers where they can access the projects, recipes, etc., featured in the post.  

We cover step-by-step how to create the perfect content curator posts in our Launch a Blog training program.  Sign up to learn everything from idea development to how to source content for your list posts.

Find Your Own Expert

If you aren’t an expert and want to offer more original style content, then find one.

No one can be a pro at everything, so enlisting the expertise of someone else is a great way to provide valuable content to your readers.

The best way to do this is to do an expert interview.  

We’ve done this with all sorts of experts from finance gurus to travel buffs.  We’ll interview them on a subject and then turn it into a blog post based on the expertise they shared.

We always start by searching for blogs that we like or admire.  You can just search around in your niche for authorities in whatever space you’d like to write about. Identify some blogs that align with your own blogging goals and interests.  

Then, find a contact form or email address and request an interview.

We’ll usually offer to pay them a little fee for their time.  It’s a nice incentive for them to give us their best content.  But if you don’t have a budget for this, really sell them on why they should interview with you.  

Maybe you can’t offer money, but maybe you can offer traffic.  The end goal of having a profitable blog is having enough traffic to monetize, so traffic is always an appealing incentive.

We usually include in our outreach email some of our stats and let them know exactly how we’ll be plugging them and their blog to drive traffic back to their site as well.  

If you want to specifics on our outreach formula, we provide a full email outreach template for you to use in our Launch a Blog training program.

Once you have an interview lined up, really plan out your interview questions.  You only have this expert for an hour or so, so you want to be purposeful of your time and theirs.

We usually develop our blog post idea and then develop our interview questions around that.  That way, the information we seek is driven by the desired end result.  

This is helpful for focusing the interview and making sure you get information that will help you create the content you want to publish.

Those are my fail-proof, top 3 Tips For Blogging When You’re Not An Expert.  

Your blog is your journey, and you can create amazing content without knowing everything.

Your expertise will be cultivated through time and experience.  But don’t let the fact that you might not be an expert stop you from taking the plunge and starting your blog.  Let these tips do the talking in the meanwhile.  If you want our guide to creating amazing content curator posts and our expert outreach email template, be sure to sign up for our Launch a Blog training here!