Niche Content Writing, No Experience Necessary

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Unlike many here, I personally have no trouble writing content (as you will see – and possibly live to regret — by the time you have finished this long-winded post ).  I believe I was born to write – I established my first “writing for dollars” business at the tender age of 7.

The first thing people usually say when challenged for content is that they don’t have good writing skills.  Personally I don’t believe that’s the case (if it is:  outsource).

Instead of poor writing skills (bad grammar, etc) being the root of the problem, maybe you’re looking at your niche from the wrong angle and thus can’t find anything worth talking about.  It follows that if you can’t easily talk about a subject, you’re probably not going to easily write about it either.  After all, writing is nothing more than talking on paper.  To master talking – or writing – about a topic, you’ll need to clarify your perspective.  Lousy perspective, lousy content.

So where does a clear perspective come from?  Brace yourself.  It first comes from having knowledge of your topic.  But, you say, a lot of successful content marketers are holding forth that you don’t even need any knowledge about, or interest in, the niche you choose.  I completely agree with them – when it comes to an experienced content writer.  But I beg to differ when it comes to the novice or struggling content writer.  In those cases, I say if you have no experience with/knowledge of a topic, it’s bound to show in whatever content you do produce.

Fortunately, there’s a fantastic cure for “lack of knowledge” – subscribe to feeds & blogs, and read forums and news about our chosen niches.  Once we’ve done our homework, so to speak, by reading up on our niche topics, we can then speak (or write) authoritatively about those topics.  For instance, I’ve never BASE jumped in my life, I don’t personally know anyone who has, neither am I planning to BASE jump nor to meet BASE jumpers….  Yet, with research, there is no reason why I couldn’t discuss the rudiments of BASE jumping, its joys, and its tribulations in a meaningful enough way to generate enough interest that my readers would click through to my “learn how to base jump” money page on Amazon.

The second piece of the perspective puzzle comes from having an interest in the topic.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  “You don’t even need to be interested in your topic bla bla bla…” But I say, again, if you have no interest in the topic, your content will suffer.  Your content will be as boring as you are bored. *yawn*

As luck would have it, it’s also simple enough to become SME’s (subject matter experts) and provide interesting content on topics which don’t even hold any interest for us – by using the so-called “Golden Nuggets” method.  When you are gaining knowledge on your lucrative topic, use literal or figurative index cards to make note of any information that causes you an “aha” moment.  Going back to our BASE jumping example…  Perhaps you’ve never really had any particular interest in BASE jumping, but you thought you’d have a go at the niche because it has the proper Google ratings, and because you do indeed have an interest in sports as a whole.

While you’re reading about *yawn* BASE jumping you begin to take notice of the information surrounding BASE jumping casualties or fatalities because — AHA! — you also have an interest in safety.  A love for sports and a concern for safety – could that get you interested enough in BASE jumping to be able to write some good content about it?  Do you think you could throw together three or four paragraphs skillfully inter-weaving your interest (sports) with your promising niche (BASE jumping) and leading your reader to your web store/affiliate links where you provide a free “So you wanna be a BASE jumper” ebook along with — you guessed it! — proper BASE jumping safety gear.  Better perspective, better content.

So, to conclude, before you automatically assume that poor writing skills are at the root of your poor or non-existent content, consider shifting your perspective – or, as I like to think of it consider “spinning the niche” (catchy phrase, that, and I would appreciate the credit for coining it, thanks) – toward your own realm of experience and interests.  You might discover that you, too, were born to write content.