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).

If you have ever taken an Internet 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 taught to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.

I’ll be frank; you want to be the expert.

Reporters leverage the content of the experts and in most cases people start off as reporters because they haven’t established expertise. Experts enjoy the perks of preeminence, higher conversion rates because of perceived value, it’s easier to get publicity, 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 attention.

Most Bloggers Are Reporters

The thing with expertise is that it requires something - experience. No person becomes an expert without doing things and learning. Bloggers usually start out without expertise and as a result begin their blogging journey by talking about everything going on in their niche (reporting) and by interviewing and talking about other experts (reporting again).

There’s nothing wrong with reporting of course and for many people it’s a necessity at first until you build up some expertise. Unfortunately the ratios are pretty skewed when it comes to reporters and experts - there are a lot more reporters than there are experts, hence reporters tend to struggle to gain attention and when they do, they often just enhance the reputation of the expert they are reporting on.

Don’t Replicate Your Teacher

If you have ever spent some time browsing products in the learn Internet marketing niche you will notice a pattern. Many people first study Internet marketing from a “guru” (for lack of a better term). The guru teaches how he or she is able to make money online, and very often the view that the student gleams is that in order to make money online you have to teach others how to make money online.

The end result of this process is a huge army of amateurs attempting to replicate what their teacher does in the same industry - the Internet marketing industry - not realizing that without expert status based on a proven record and all the perks that come with it, it’s next to impossible to succeed.

Even people, who enjoy marginal success, say for example growing an email list of 1,000 people, then go out and launch a product about how to grow an email list of 1,000 people. Now I have no problems with that, I think it’s fine to teach beginners and leverage whatever achievements you have, the problem is that people gravitate to the same niche - Internet marketing - and rarely have any key points of differentiation.

How many products out there do you know of that all claim to teach the same things - email marketing, SEO, pay per click, affiliate marketing, and all the sub-niches that fall under the category of Internet marketing. It’s a saturated market, yet when you see your teachers and other gurus making money teaching others how to make money (and let’s face it - making money as a subject is one of the most compelling) - your natural inclination is to follow in their footsteps.

If the key is to become an expert and you haven’t spent the last 5-10 years making money online, I suggest you look for another niche to establish expertise in.

Report on Your Process, Not Others

The secret to progress from reporter to expert is not to focus on other experts and instead report on your own journey. When you are learning how to do something and implementing things day by day, or studying other people’s work, you need to take your process and what you do as a result of what you learn, and use it as content for your blog.

It’s okay to talk about experts when you learn something from them, but always relate it to what you are doing. If you learn a technique from an expert it’s fine to state you learned it from them (and affiliate link to their product too!) but you should then take that technique, apply it to what you are doing and then report back YOUR results, not there’s. Frame things using your opinion - your stories - and don’t regurgitate what the expert said. The key is differentiation and personality, not replication.

Expertise comes from doing things most people don’t do and then talking about it. If you do this often enough you wake up one day as an expert, possibly without even realizing how it happened, simply because you were so good at reporting what you did.

You Are Already An Expert

Most people fail to become experts (or perceived as experts) because they don’t leverage what they already know. Every person who lives a life learns things as they go, takes action every day and knows something about something. The reason why they never become an expert is because they choose not to (which is fine for some, not everyone wants to be an expert), but if your goal is to blog your way to expertise and leave the world of reporting behind you have to start teaching and doing so by leveraging real experience.

Experience can come from what you do today and what you have done previously; you just need to take enough steps to demonstrate what you already know and what you are presently learning along your journey. I know so many people in my life, who are experts simply by virtue of the life they have lived, yet they are so insecure about what they know, they never commit their knowledge to words for fear of…well fear.

Blogs and the Web in general, are amazing resources when you leverage them as a communication tool to spread your expertise because of the sheer scope of people they can reach. If all you ever do is talk to people in person and share your experience using limited communication mediums, you haven’t much hope of becoming an expert. Take what you know and show other people through blogging, and you might be surprised how people change their perception of you in time.

Reporting Is A Stepping Stone

If your previous experience and expertise is from an area you want to leave behind or you are starting from “scratch”, then reporting is the path you must walk, at least for the short term.

Reporting is a lot of fun. Interviewing experts, talking about what other people are doing and just being part of a community is not a bad way to blog. In many cases people make a career of reporting (journalism is about just that), but if you truly want success and exponential results, at some point you will have to stand up and proclaim yourself as someone unusually good at something and then proceed to demonstrate it over and over again.

Have patience and focus on what you do to learn and then translate that experience into lessons for others, and remember, it’s okay to be a big fish in a small pond, that’s all most experts really are.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:

www.BlogMastermind.com

Surely, everyone interests in make money onlinewish to have passive income, and surely most people define passive income by making money without doing anything! Well, does such an opportunity really exist? Many people wish to have that, but in reality unfortunately it is JUST a dream! So what is passive income anyway? you asked. After reading The Truth About Creating Passive Income Online , Kenneth Koh actually define passive income as “A passive income is an income system that does not trade time for money” What does that mean?

Passive income example

One obvious example will be doing a 9-5 salary job. If you don’t work and quit your job you don’t make money at all. Another example for a non passive income will be doing a freelance writing, graphics, web design, link building etc. The Ultimate goal for passive income according to Kenneth is to create a system that can sustainable or generate an income on itself. A typical example is making money adsense. You need content, traffic, and an optimized placement of your adsense code. Once you’ve figure out a system that let you constantly generate traffic and content on your site. Then you have a passive income system.

The differences between a passive income and making money is often creating a passive income system often you will lose some money. Just like you’re doing an offline business. Open a retail fashion shop for example. Not every design if clothing could make you money. However, if you choose the right piece, it can earn you a great deal! I know that because my dad is doing a fashion business and often some designs were really sucked and no one else want it! But business is a business. Business can make you rich but jobs won’t. Perhaps it is the same case with passive income, seeks every way to automate it, once you find out how you can do it and that’s it!

Recently when I read an article from Can Blogging Create Passive Income? by Kenneth Koh, he did mention a point that I think worth while posting here,

Many years back, when the idea of internet marketing first started, there was a myth that says “Built it and traffic will come”. ‘it’ refers to a website.

People started building different kinds of websites, only to realize that their websites are only visited by ghosts.

Years later, history repeats.

The concept of blogging was introduced and everyone starts to blog. The myth now becomes “Blog and traffic will come”.

So how do you drive traffic to your blogs?

step 1:

Submit Your Blog to Technorati - a blog search engine

http://www.technorati.com/.

Step 2:

setup automatically ping services after your post is published

Get a full list of the ping services

to set up if you are wordpress, Login as admin
then settings -> writing -> update services.

Just copy and paste the list that you’ve found above
and press “saves changes”

Step 3:

Submit your intereting blog posts to social
bookmarking sites like Digg.com, Stumble Upon,
Delicious, Propeller, and Reddit.

Keep your title compelling and also write a short
description about your blog post.
E.g, Recently I have enabled my blog to have “do follow”
comment. If I want to submit the blog post, I will
write something like

“Gain backlinks from my blog by comment 5 times!”
We all know the benefit of do follow comment link,
I have enabled it and with definetly getting more
traffic. I am constantly building backlinks and it will
definitely gaining Page rank and traffic so start comment
now!”

step 4:

Submit your blog to some blog directories such as blogCatlog,
bloggeries and join their groups and discussions.
After you comment and made some post, leave your domain their
as signature

Step 5:

step up helper blogs on Xanga, wordpress, blogspot and link
back to your main blogs.

Step 6:

submit your articles to articles directories like Ezine articles,
goArticles, Articles Dashbroade, article base and link with your
main blogs in your author bio.

Step 7:

find a list of relevant blogs and comment on it.

There are other methods as well like submit your blog
Rss feed to feedburner, some Rss directories and increase
it blog traffic.

The above steps should keep you going
for a while