I'm not an expert -- can I still blog?

Short answer: YES

Michael writes (I paraphrase):

I have a question around positioning yourself as an expert in the
blogosphere. I have only become interested in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
in the past few months, but have read a great deal and listened to several great
podcasts on the subject and feel I can begin to possibly market that
knowledge.

However, there are a ton of SEO blogs from established experts with
much more experience than myself, and I can't help but feel a little
intimidated about starting my own blog on the subject . . .

My recommendation -- start blogging.

What constitutes an expert? One can be an expert without holding a PhD from Harvard (or even better, Dartmouth - guess where I went to college?) and being the pre-eminent world authority!

I'll use a definition closer to the "main stream media" definition of "expert" -- do you know more than most people? In your case I'd say absolutely!

And if you are the "world expert" (however that may be defined), you may have trouble communicating to beginners. Some experts take so much for granted that communicating with beginners and intermediates is near impossible.

For example, I once took a class in Linear Algebra from Einstein's Mathematician (Einstein literally couldn't even balance his checkbook), John Kemeny, clearly an expert by any definition. Quite bluntly, he sucked as a teacher to someone at my level. Ignoring his arrogance and scarcely understandable accent, he simply took too much for granted. He couldn't teach/explain/think at my level of mathematics. Confucius also said something similar about "experts."

Using a perhaps more blogger appropriate definition of expert, can you add value to your intended readers? Can you teach them about SEO? If so, you are expert enough.

And as you blog and pursue your interest in SEO, you'll definitely learn more and become more of an expert.

Sorry for the long rambling email -and thanks for reading. Hey, this would make a great blog post :)
(yes, this really did begin as an email)

Comments

[Hans P Fosseng]

Blogging is a great way of learning about any topic of interest. You read a lot of different stuff along the way, you study more closely what you find interesting, you write a lot and you'll hopefully get feedback from your readers. And you'll probably take part in the conversation in relevant blogs through comments and trackbacks as well.

If you know everything about eg. SEO, wouldn't it be quite boring to blog a lot about the topic?

[Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business]

Well put Hans.
Passion is more important than expertise

[Joyce Dierschke]

Great post. An issue I've also been struggling with. Thanks for an encouraging answer.

[Brooke]

Thank you for this post Ted! It is very timely - so I posted about it myself!

[Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business]

Thanks Joyce and Brooke!
I can't imagine blogging on a topic and NOT learning more about it.