How to Become a Niche Expert

If you want your blog to work, you might want to become a niche expert.

But what if you’re not an expert? No one has heard of you. There are so many experts out there that you don’t have a chance. I’m sure you’ve thought about all of these factors. It makes you not even want to try it out for fear of failure.

And that’s where most bloggers fail at. They get “imposter syndrome,” and they don’t commit to becoming a niche expert.

I’m here to tell you that from my experience and my techniques, becoming a niche expert isn’t that difficult. You just need to understand the strategies and techniques available for you to use.

And in this guide, I’ll show you exactly how to become a niche expert for blogging.

Become a Niche Expert by Defining Your Niche

The first thing you MUST do in order to become a niche expert is to define your niche.

You’d be surprised how many bloggers don’t do this.

They blog about a specific topic but then stray into other related topics. I did this myself. I started this blog focusing on blogging but then started straying into non-blogging topics, thinking I needed to cover those topics, too. But in the end, I’m a blogging expert, and that’s what I need to stick to.

You need to define your niche and stick to it because it’s difficult to try to be an expert in several niches, even if they’re all related. No one is truly going to understand what exactly your specialty is if you’re focusing on several different topics.

Define a niche and stick to it.

PRO TIP: Choose a niche that you know a lot about. This should be a passion, hobby, or big interest in your life. If you choose a niche that you don’t know much about just because it’s trending, the competition that does know a lot about it is going to eat you alive. It will be the hardest blog you’ll ever run because you don’t know anything about it, and other people do. Know your niche!

Learn Something New Every Day

If you want to become a niche expert, you need to have a lot of knowledge about your niche.

This can easily be accomplished if you learn something about the niche. But learning doesn’t end in one day or after you complete a course. It’s a lifetime experience.

You should strive to learn something new about your niche on a daily basis.

If you only spend 5 to 10 minutes a day or a full eight hours, try to learn something new about your niche each day.

The more you learn, the easier it will be for you to become an expert in your blogging niche.

PRO TIP: The best way to learn something new is to Google questions about each sub-topic within your blogging niche. Ask Google a question about it and read the results. If you can find courses focusing on your niche, you might want to take them, too. Sometimes they cost money, sometimes they’re expensive, but most times it’s worth the money in the end.

Start Getting More Hands-On Experience

Become a niche expert by getting hands-on experience with your niche.

My niche is blogging, as we all know. I get experience with blogging by blogging. I have a few different blogs that I actively maintain. I use different blogging strategies and do the stuff I learn about each day in relation to blogging.

Because of that, I have a lot of hands-on experience with blogging.

This is what you should be doing with your niche. You need to “get your hands dirty” in a sense by practicing the direct activities of what your niche is about.

If your niche is about blogging, then you need to write more blogs. If you blog about pickleball, then you need to play pickleball every chance you get.

Hands-on experience combined with daily education will make you an expert really quickly.

PRO TIP: Learn something new every day about your blogging niche. Then, take what you learned at the end of the day and practice it in real-time. Record the results. Understand what made it work and what made it not work. This is a chance for you to really dive deep into the topics you want to become a niche expert in.

Network with Other Niche Experts

Another great way to become a niche expert is to find and network with other experts in your niche.

Other experts in your niche might be competitors to you. You might be a competitor to them. But both you and they know that collaborating and networking will only benefit one another rather than harm one another.

Your traffic can help their blog. Their traffic can help your blog.

Your advice is gold. Their advice is gold.

Find bloggers who are blogging about topics you’re also blogging about. Befriend them. Ask them for advice. Ask them about their biggest challenges. If you can help them with their challenges, try to help them out. Develop a friendship.

You’re better off being friends than just competitors.

PRO TIP: To find other experts in your niche, turn to areas away from your blog where you’ve found your audience. Your competitors are always going to be associated with those you are trying to market to. This might be social media or an online community. It might even be in your blog post comments. Go out and seek them out in areas where your audience already is.

Share Your Knowledge of Your Niche

To become a niche expert, you need to be seen as a niche expert.

One of the best ways to be seen as one is to give away information about your niche. I want to repeat that. GIVE AWAY information about your niche.

Answer the hardest questions in your niche. Solve the biggest problems in your niche. And do this all for free. Don’t ask for anything in return.

This will show your audience that you know what you’re talking about. It will also show them that you’re the one they should go to in order to get the information they need.

PRO TIP: Don’t just share your knowledge on your blog. Get out on social media, online communities, Reddit, Quora, and anywhere else that your audience is at. Find your audience, get yourself known as someone helpful and friendly, and always be willing to share your advice with them.

Keep Updated with the Latest Niche News and Trends

If you become a niche expert, you can easily lose your expertise if you don’t understand the latest developments in your niche.

It’s important to pay attention to the latest developments in your niche. You want to make sure you read the latest news when it arrives. If any trends are going on, you’ll want to know them, too.

If you don’t know the latest details, and your audience knows that you don’t know it, it’ll make you look like you don’t know as much as you say you know.

A niche expert will be able to report on the latest as it becomes the latest.

PRO TIP: Subscribe to every industry news newsletter and RSS feed that you can find. Make sure you make a morning routine of reading the updates. The sooner you know about updated information, the better.

Get Certified and Trained

The more training you have, the easier it will be to become a niche expert.

You might assume you know everything, but there could be some things or styles that you don’t know. Because of that, you should enroll in all certifications and training sessions that you find for your niche.

Some of the best types of training are online courses. Some are free, some are paid, and some are fairly expensive. If you can afford to pay, then try to take all the free ones, even if it’s YouTube University. But if you can afford to pay, you should. You might even consider paying for the more expensive ones because they’ll be beneficial in the long run.

Not only will they give you an opportunity to learn more about the niche, but you’ll also be seen by others in that niche learning about it. It shows them that you’re advancing your expertise. It gives you opportunities to network with other niche experts.

Learning will never stop when it comes to gaining more authority in your niche.

PRO TIP: You can usually find the better courses offered on blogs that are within your niche. If you use paid courses from those blogs, you’re supporting a fellow blogger. If you do this enough and ever launch your own course, you’ll be more likely to gain new subscribers who also want to help you out for helping them.

Build Your Personal Brand

To become a niche expert, you’ll need to build two brands: Your blog’s brand and your personal brand.

Sometimes, these two brands are the same. But often, they’re not the same. Whatever the matter is, you need to build a brand on both if both are separate.

Your name should be associated with being an expert in your niche.

Your blog’s name should share the same branding on an enterprise level. What I mean by that is that you need to use the same branding everywhere. This means that you need to use the same photos, brand colors, voice, and theme on your blog and all social media accounts that you use.

You want to make sure that when people click on your blog or social media pages, they immediately know who you are. If you don’t use the same branding, people might not recognize you as quickly as you hope they do.

Every blogger should have a brand. If you notice, brand names are well-known, and non-brands are often forgotten.

PRO TIP: Use your real voice when creating a brand. That means that you should type like you talk in real life. Don’t try to act like someone you’re not. It’s easy to see on the internet, and it’ll make you look bad. It’s important to be yourself when creating a brand.

Be a Source of Valuable Content

I wanted to save the best strategy for last.

To become a niche expert, you need to be a source of quality and value concerning the niche.

The information you provide should be the best information available. If your competition is providing the best information, your mission should be to provide even better information.

Everyone has gaps in their content. Your competition will have it. You’ll have it. Someone will likely strive to be better than you one day. But you’ll have to stay in it to stay the best. And the best way to be the best is to be the best.

Study your competition and always watch their next move.

If they make a change, then you should change your strategy to be better than their new strategy.

It’s a race with no finish. You have to always train and always run a little faster each time.

PRO TIP: Tune yourself to enjoy competition so that you’re ready for every move that your competitors make. If the competition excites you and motivates you, then you’ll never have a problem competing. If you fail, don’t cry; instead, focus on what made you fail so that you know what not to do in the future. Failure is another way to learn something new on a daily basis. It’s what all the experts do.

Anyone can become a niche expert if they put their mind to it and try. You can follow the guidance provided within this post to aid you in making the right decisions to become an expert in your niche. If you want to learn more about successful blogging, consider joining my free online community dedicated to blogging called Blogging Collective. I’d love to get more members and turn it into something special. You can also follow me on X and LinkedIn for more blogging tips, resources, and information.

About the Author

Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers who follow this blog. Shawn also offers various services for extra help in content creation and blogging.