You Can Choose Whether to be an Expert or 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 affiliate marketing course or attended a seminar specifically for beginners, you have probably heard about the two different methodologies. Whenever the business model is based on content, and if you blog for money then the model is based on content, people are shown to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.

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

Reporters report on the content of the experts and in many cases bloggers start off as reporters because they have not established expertise. Experts enjoy the perks of preeminence, higher conversion rates because of perceived value, it’s easier to get noticed, people are more likely to seek you out rather than you having to seek others out, joint ventures come easier, etc. experts in most cases simply make more money and attract more publicity.

Too Many Bloggers Are Content to be Reporters

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 up some expertise. Unfortunately the ratios are pretty skewed when it comes to reporters and experts – there are far more reporters than experts, hence reporters often struggle to gain publicity and when they do, they often just help the reputation of the expert they are reporting on.

Don’t Copy Your Mentor

If you have ever spent some time browsing products pertaining to the Blogging for Dollars niche you will notice a pattern. Many people first study affiliate marketing from a guru (for lack of a better term). The mentor teaches how he or she is able to make money blogging, 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 blogging.

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

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

How many bloggers out there do you know of that all say they teach the same things – email marketing, SEO, pay per click, Internet marketing, and all the sub-niches that fall under the heading of Internet marketing. It’s a competitive industry, yet when you see your mentors and other mentors making money teaching others how to work from home (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 key is to identify yourself as a mentor and you haven’t spent the last 5-10 years making money, I suggest you look for another niche 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.

Making money online is becoming more and more competitive. Learn to controlling your personal brand and build twitter authority. You are welcome to reprint this article – but get your own unique content version here.