When you launch a new website then often you will do so expecting to know something about the topic you are writing on. Of course this makes the most sense as it means that you will already be well versed in the subject and will have plenty of articles you can write already without having to spend time researching.

However while this is the conventional route to go it is by no means the only route to go and there are certainly ways that you can make a success of a site on a topic that you did not previously know anything about. Her we will look at how and why you might want to try this.

A Learning Curve

One reasons that you might want to consider writing on a subject you’re not well versed in is as a way to BECOME well versed in it. This is a great strategy because it means that you can write about the subject as you learn and can help your readers to learn at the same pace that you do. They say that you teach best when you are learning yourself because you are looking at the subject from a beginner’s perspective. At the same time though you will also this way be able to invole your readers more by taken them on a journey’ with you and creating a kind of ‘we’re all in this together’ vibe about your site.

Then there’s the fact that by writing on a subject that you are learning about you will give yourself more motivation to keep learning and you will be able to better commit some of the information to memory because you’ll be forced to understand it to a good degree in order to pass on the information effectively.

There are actually countless examples of highly successful blogs which worked exactly this way. One of the best examples of this is ‘The Personal MBA’ which started as one man’s project to learn everything he would on an MBA but without paying the expensive tuition fees. The idea her was that he would catalogue useful concepts and resources so that people like him had a one stop place to go for information, and before long the blog had become huge and a highly successful business in its own right (almost ironically). The reason it worked so well? Because Josh Kaufman who ran the site was learning himself and identified what other people needed so that he could supply it.

Getting Around the Problem

However in some cases you won’t want to learn the subject at all and you may not have any interest in it. In these cases you might just be choosing the subject pragmatically because you know there is a demand for it or because you know the advertisers pay well for that niche.

But this doesn’t mean that you can’t still run the site on that subject. For one you can write fairly basic articles by simply rewording the ones you come across on other sites, and at the same time you can pay others to write your articles for you who do have the knowledge and the interest.  Of course writing on a subject you are at least interested in learning is always preferable, but when the situation calls for it you shouldn’t let a lack of knowledge restrict you.