Most of us want to practice the things we're already good at, and avoid the things we suck at. We stay average or intermediate amateurs forever.

Passionate: Creating Passionate Users

In Part II in my “How To Become An Expert” Series, I touched on how reading comments on other blogs (and of course, visiting those commentars sites) could lead you to being able to tap into an audience that you weren’t sure you’d be able to have in your niche.

In Part III, I will discuss how you take the first two pieces of expertness and keep molding it not only to fit your particular niche blog but your life as well.

If there is one thing that I know about finding a niche and then learning about it; is that there will always be work to be done. If you believe you have your niche on lock, that’s when you will start to do the most damage to your blog. You don’t want to ever have your niche on lock because that’s saying you don’t believe there is anything MORE you can learn from it.

Which spells trouble not only for you but for your readers. It’s human nature not to excel at everything – the same mentality should be applied to your blog. So you know a great deal about the shearing techniques of Albania mountain goats – except for maybe the one or two historical techniques that are rarely used – but, you kick butt at all the rest; so you talk about just those techniques. Okay, well you can only go so far about what YOU do know, how about you rock the boat and start documenting the techniques, ideas or situations that don’t come natural to you.

Make it a weekly (or monthly) implement into your blog. Pose the unfamiliar situation, give your insight (or ideas) and then finish with a question or statement that is both open ended and thought provoking to entice your readers. I’m sure your readers will have much to say – both old and new, alike.

Again, if there is anything about becoming an expert or niche blogging that you have a question on, feel free to send me an email or comment. If you want to turn your comment into a blog post, let me know that as well, I’ll gladly consider it!

So how is the niche picking out there? Anyone, figure out what there niche is exactly or are you still struggling? Remember that niche blogging is not always concrete, blogs (not to mention, blog writers) change all the time; one thing to always to repeat to yourself is that for your first blog (at least), talk about something you know.

Next, focus on your competition (I personally, don’t like to see it that way because we are all in this together), after all blogging is a business. How many blogs do you know in your token niche (it doesn’t matter how specific it is; someone out there probably offers something similar)? Do you visit them daily? What jumped out at you? Was it the design or the posting? Do you view it as good or bad? What would you keep and EXPAND on and what would you get rid of all together?

The key is to EXPAND on a good idea or take a bad one and change it to suit your needs; stealing someone’s idea directly is not the way to go even though the blogging universe is vast word does eventually get around and besides, would you want someone doing something like that to you?

Think of interesting collaborations that you could do for one of your favorite niche bloggers, or perhaps you could guest blog on a website, which would direct traffic your way. There are also blog carnivals that have become really popular as of late; if your field is well known (self help, fashion, etc) there will be tons of carnivals for you to submit too, even if your niche is not as broad, starting your own carnival would be something of interest and another resource to use to bring more people to your blog!

Think outside of your comfort zone and your personal box, blogging is not a static enterprise and being that it seems everyone is blogging these days it’s better to go for the gold, instead of calmly accepting the bronze (you see that the Olympics are on my mind)!