If you are struggling to think of a topic for your new blog then I have an idea for you. Past advice has been to follow your passion, or failing that to follow your expertise or if all else fails, follow the money. This idea is a little different and there is a ready made pool of topics just waiting to be exploited!
Succumbing to peer pressure I finally started playing with 43things, you know that “web2.0 social networking” doodad? While it seems to me the web application equivalent of those Livejournal 20 question “memes” that teenage girls like to share it did give me inspiration.
Lots of people want to learn new things
The idea of 43things is you go into the tool and enter all the things you would like to do or achieve. Kind of like a goal diary. Having entered all your goals and ambitions then you can start “networking” with other users.
One of the things I would like to do is to learn french. Well apparently so do 1994 other users. See where I am going with this?
Content ideas on tap
I started my Digital Photography blog after playing with my new DSLR and realising to get the most out of the hobby I really ought to learn it properly. After talking with a couple of friends we decided if we were all going to learn we might as well share notes and what better way than to blog it? (Well, a wiki would have worked too! Heh).
The great thing about blogging while you learn is all the topics you struggle with, learn and blog about will be the same or similar that any beginner will face. One of the problems with being an expert is you forget what Mr and Miss Noob find difficult. Your audience will connect with you because you are one of them.
You learn, visitors learn, you earn
For your own learning it is great too. Not only do you learn more by trying to explain to others but other people will read what you write and answer your questions and fix your mistakes. I got confused about a particular piece of DSLR lense terminology and posted a question “I’m confused, help!” – straight away I had four comments all clearing up my confusion, you can’t beat it. Yes I could have posted to a forum but this way I was helped, anyone visiting my blog is helped, and the way my blog gets interlinked it will stay for the lifetime of my blog. Win win and win – fantastic.
Tap the resource
Once I realised that learning blogs were a great option I started looking at 43things again. I realised anyone ought to be able to look through the list of example “things”, find one that inspires and write a blog about any one of them. Not only do you get to learn something new, you get to blog about it and hopefully earn some pro blogging income at the same time knowing that there is potential traffic available!
What are you waiting for? Get learning, blogging and earning!
4 thoughts on “Learn, Blog, Earn”
Passion is what it takes. Writing about your passions. People love passion!
Exactly 😀
The multiple language thing was something Nick and I talked about, perfect for Nicks hub blog network idea right?
Beautifully written, Chris. It’s true. You don’t have to be an expert to write about a topic. The old saw about writing what you know still applies, but in this case, you just learned what you are writing about. It’s fresh in your mind, and you can communicate this better to other newbies.
Having been a teaching assistant in college while I was still and undergrad made me realize this early on in my life. I try to remember this when I write tutorials.
What you’ve said makes feel vindicated on those days that I think that my blog about blogging (for butt-nekkid newbies) isn’t worth writing. I don’t write it to make any money, despite the ads there – those kinds of blogs just don’t earn much. I simply document what I’ve just learned, hoping it’ll help new bloggers planning to go professional.
The nice thing is that if you start up a “learn French” blog, as you mentioned, those that want to find it will do so eventually. And there are enough language CD/ tape producers that you may earn some ad revenue from this sort of niche.
If you plan one step ahead, you could even set up, say, a “learn languages” multi-category blog. Why? Because in my experience, people who are open-minded enough to learn more than one language also wants to learn more than two languages. You may just have hit on something there, Chris 😀
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