6 Tips on How to Blog When You’re Not an Expert|林子超博客

Do You Feel Like An Imposter?

Do you constantly feel like a fraud even though you have plenty of experience on the subject matter? Do you feel like you haven’t accomplished enough to become a professional blogger? Well, then you might be going through a phenomenon called the Imposter Syndrome.

The imposter syndrome is a psychological situation that comes in many forms. It mostly occurs when people start comparing their abilities with others and feel intimidated by them. Then the person starts to wonder if he or she is really an imposter fooling others, even when they have plenty to offer.

If you also feel like this, then you must remember that it’s all in your head. It all comes down to how you define the concept of an expert. Because if you know exactly what you’re writing about, then you too can be an expert.

Do you think Stephen King went on a killing spree before writing his horror novels that involve murderers and killer clowns? Of course not. He simply did his research and made it come alive through his writing.

So, don’t let that feeling take a hold of you. If you’re not an expert, simply follow these easy tips to blog like a pro.

1. Understand Your Audience

The key to writing great blog posts that satisfy more readers is understanding your audience. Learning more about your audience’s age, education level, and interests will help you create blog posts that are designed to attract their attention.

Thankfully, tools such as Google Analytics and Facebook Audience Insights makes it easier for you to learn such information about your audience. The data from these tools will even show you detailed information about your audience, including their location, their lifestyle choices, and much more.

Using this data, you can develop a content strategy for your blog that appeals to your audience. For example, if the majority of your website visitors come from the United States and like watching movies, you can then use references to Hollywood movies in your blog posts as a way to connect with your audience.

2. Learn How To Research Like A Pro

The best way to understand a topic is by doing thorough research. Thanks to Google, you can get this job done quite easily.

Use Google to your advantage to research on the topics you’re writing about. Learn to use advanced Google search techniques to gather more details on the subject you’re writing about, like statistics, research studies, and famous quotes.

Mentioning these stats and quoting legitimate research reports will allow you to prove your claims and appear more professional through your writing.

3. Write For Yourself

Write for your audience! That’s a popular piece of advice most writers give out to beginners. But, what they fail to mention is that this rule of thumb doesn’t apply to all bloggers.

A common issue that keeps most bloggers from growth is their need to please their audience. If you feel overwhelmed by trying too hard to write content that your audience may or may not like, you should take a break and focus on writing about the things that you like.

For the first few months, stop worrying about page views and website traffic and just write for yourself. When you write about the things that you’re truly interested in, you write better and your readers will also easily recognize your passion for the topic. Eventually, your blog will grow even without you realizing it.

4. Follow Some Online Courses

If you feel like you lack the knowledge about the subject to write blog posts, then why not start learning about it?

There used to be a time when you have to go to a library or a college to learn about something. But, not anymore. Now, you can download a book onto your phone and follow an online course to learn anything you want.

Check out some of these popular sites where you can learn anything you want:

Udemy (paid)

edX.org (free audit)

Coursera (free audit)

Skillshare (paid)

Treehouse (paid)

5. Spy On Your Competition

To blog like a pro, you need to learn how pros are blogging.

Understanding what type of tools your competitors are using will not only help you develop your blog on the same level as the professionals but it will also give you a big confidence boost as well.

For example, if you visit any popular and established blog, you’ll notice how they use beautifully designed pop-up messages to convert their website visitors to subscribers. These sites use plugins such as OptinMonster to get that job done.

You can then use these same tools on your blog to show professionalism and also increase conversions to grow your email list.

6. Hire A Freelancer

If all else fails, there’s still one option you can use to develop quality content for your blog without any effort: Hire someone else to do it.

These days, you can hire freelancers to get anything done on the cheap. You can simply use a platform like UpWork to post a job and find a freelance writer who specializes in your blog niche to write blog posts on a budget.

Of course, it requires an investment, but it’s an easy way to develop your blog while you work on other projects.

Just Keep Writing

It doesn’t matter if you’re terrible at writing blog posts. Just keep writing for practice. Write at least 1,000 words every day on a topic that you love. And keep reading books and subscribe to blogs in your industry to stay up to date.

As Margaret Atwood once said, “reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice.” So, just keep reading and writing. And you’ll see your skills improve in no time.