Recently my 16 year old sister asked me about how to earn money blogging. Having read about the successes of some young internet entrepreneurs on the news, she was eager to start something herself.

I told her she needs to write something that people want to read, so that they learn something valuable from her blog and will visit her blog again. That means she needs to be an expert or strive to become an expert in some topic.

“But I don’t know what to write. I don’t know anything.”

That’s a good question, one that many newbies struggle with. I too grappled with this problem when I started my first blog 3 years ago.

No one can give a straightforward solution to this one, because there is none. There is no exact step by step blueprint that works every time, at least to my knowledge. Because if there is, I will be of the first to learn of it and share it with my sister.

That’s why even the big time bloggers can only share how their blog got to where it is today, but can’t really show the exact steps about how they chose their topic.

What newbies should learn is a proper perspective. The correct mindset. Because without developing a proper mindset of blogging, no amount of information will help them.

What’s the proper perspective a newbie needs?

There are Learning Curves.

Like all kinds of work, there is a learning curve to becoming an expert blogger. But what most don’t realize is that there are TWO learning curves.

1. Learning Curve for Blogging and Marketing

The first is probably what’s already talked about very often – blogging and marketing skills like writing, driving traffic (twitter, comments, etc), monetizing, etc.

This, you probably already know. But what most bloggers forget is that there is also another learning curve to becoming an expert in your topic.

The second part is less talked about, and the part where most newbies struggle with – the TOPIC, i.e. WHAT to write about.

2. Learning Curve for the TOPIC

Your topic also requires learning.

This stops a lot of newbies from taking action. It’s also the reason why many people stop blogging after a while, because after writing for a while, they realize that nobody is reading from their blog and they give up.

What these new bloggers may not know is that they have to be or strive to become an EXPERT in a topic to be in a position to add value to their readers, so that they will visit their blog again.

Nobody starts off as an expert in something. We all have to learn things. Different individuals learn about topics to differing amounts of degree.

The key here is to learn a topic to a greater depth and extent than others, so that you can actually teach people. That’s where you become an expert and you are in a position to add value to others.

Then people will start coming to your blog, because they are learning from you. The more value you add, the more regular readers you get.

The Role of Passion

Here is where the role of PASSION comes in. If you are passionate about your topic, it will give you the edge to learn about your topic faster and in greater depth than most people.

It gives you that drive to pursue mastery in that topic, and share your knowledge with your readers with greater fervency and detail than other bloggers.

What If You are Not an Expert in Anything?

Of course, it’s best to already be an expert in your topic BEFORE you start your blog, because this helps you to stand out from the crowd early.

Most people recognize an expert relatively quickly when they see one, and soon you find yourself getting regular readers. This spurs you early on, and you won’t give up so easily.

But for young people like my sister who is not an expert in anything, they have to choose a topic to become an expert in.

Here is where the problem lies for newbie – It’s hard to choose which topic to work towards becoming an expert in, because they don’t know what their passion is.

That’s why there is no straight-forward solution to this. You have to choose, and the problem lies in how and what to choose BEFORE you start your blog.

My take on this?

Just do it. LEARN as you BLOG.

Choose a topic, start blogging and adjust your topic along the way.

Because there are two learning curves to blogging, by simply taking action and starting your blog, you are making progress in the first one – the Learning Curve for Blogging.

Start a personal blog and start blogging about anything first. With your blog as your platform, just start learning about wordpress and the various plugins, twitter and the various social media tools, commenting around and making friends, etc.

All these are valuable experience you get when you TAKE ACTION.

Then take this opportunity to blog about anything under the sun first. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but this is a necessary experimental stage.

You can even blog about blogging, reporting on what you have learned as you do it.

Along the way, you’ll find yourself gravitating and getting interested in some topic, and you realize that you are naturally keen at learn quickly about that topic. Or there may be people who start asking you for help about a certain topic, because they perceive you to be good at it.

This may be where your PASSION is. Now is the time where you start narrowing down your posts to blogging about that particular topic. You embark on the second learning curve – the Learning Curve for the Topic. You start focusing your efforts to becoming an expert in that topic.

How you become the expert is by first learning as much as you can about your topic. Read as much as you can, do your research, take up courses and learn by doing. Do as much as you can, and do it fast. Then blog and teach what you have learned.

Specialize Along the Way

A liver specialist is an expert, but a general practitioner is not. Just by specializing alone, you have a greater chance of being viewed as an expert.

After learning about your general topic, you need to specialize. Narrow your focus to a sub-topic where you have the most chance of gaining prominence.

So if you are blogging about the topic of “make money online”, you have a greater chance to succeed if you specialize on a specific area like twitter marketing rather than the broad topic of making money online. More about this in a future post.

You certainly do not need to know everything, because that would be impossible. But you need to know more about a certain area than most people in your market to be in a position to teach others.

How Darren Rowse Did It

If you read about how problogger Darren Rowse started, he blogged about anything under the sun. As he blogged, he realized that many people were asking him for help about blogging tips.

Because Darren himself was interested in blogging, and there was a need to be filled, he started problogger to focus on blogging tips. And we know where he got to today.

He says he regrets not narrowing his focus earlier, but I’d say if he had not experimented in the beginning, he would not have known where to narrow his focus to.

Likewise for new bloggers, it is sometimes necessary to experiment around before you find a topic which you can see yourself becoming an expert in, then focusing on becoming an expert in that topic.

How Charles Did It

You may not know of it, but I had started a personal blog before Big Idea Blogger.

At first, I was learning how to blog, so I blogged about my learning experiences. So I blogged about how to use the sidebar widgets, how to track readers using Google Analytics, how to insert adsense, and even how to install a blog.

There were a small local group of people in my company who were learning how to blog too, so they were reading my blog because my blog was the only blog they knew about “how to blog”. I was also a newbie, but because I started my blog a few weeks ahead of them, they were learning things from my blog.

It was a valuable experience for me, because without the skills I gained then, I would not have known how to startup Big Idea Blogger quickly when I had my idea.

But after my early “success”, I made a BIG mistake – I stopped blogging.

I thought that since there is so much information on what I am blogging, what’s the point?

I failed to realize that just by keeping up with my blogging, I am improving my blogging skills, getting to know more friends, and making progress in the first learning curve.

Now I had lost so much time, during which I could have become a prominent blogger, maybe even an A-list blogger.

That’s why my advice would be to simply start your blog, and if you have started yours but are a bit lost, don’t worry because you are in the experimental stage. Just keep on blogging to make progress in the first learning curve.

Then as you blog, as you find yourself gravitating towards a certain topic, or getting people asking you for help about a certain topic, narrow your focus to this topic, start on the second learning curve and you are on your way to becoming an expert and a problogger.