Here’s why you don’t need to niche to be successful as a writer: if you can conduct proper research, you can write about anything with authority.
Master this one skill and you’ll be able to write in any niche your heart desires. In today’s guest post by Peace Adeoye, learn why mastering research skills should be your number one priority.
What if you could be an expert on every single topic you are interested in? Impossible? Well, it is kind of fun to do the impossible, said Walt Disney.
There’s a way to become an expert without having years of experience or academic qualifications in a particular field. You can accomplish this simply by being able to conduct good research.
Research is a skill every writer needs to have. That’s a given. But for writers who write on varying topics, research becomes more than a skill. It is a fundamental recipe for success.
As a writer, you have many resources to draw from when writing an article or a blog post. One of these resources is your own personal experience.
While personal experience is a useful tool, it often creates writing based solely on opinion. Also, personal experience is often limited. So it would be doing your readers (and you) a disservice to not include other sources in your writing.
Why Research is your most powerful tool as a writer
“We don’t know what we don’t know.” Research helps uncover knowledge we may not know we lacked and helps us question what we do know. “Research can shed light on issues we didn’t even know existed, and can raise questions we hadn’t realized even needed asking,” says Terry Fredman.
By investigating a topic, you are able to draw from other people’s knowledge and experience. This, in turn, provides you with intriguing facts to captivate your audience and keep their attention focused on your piece.
Research sets you apart as a serious writer
With over 54 million freelancers in the United States alone and about 3 million blog posts written daily, there is a lot of content out there competing for the attention of the nearly 4 billion internet users.
Without proper research, you will produce content that is below standard and your work will get lost in all that information. By producing well-researched content, you put your best foot forward against the competition.
Additionally, by presenting information backed with verifiable facts, you earn the trust of your audience. When the facts you have presented are verifiable, you establish credibility without having to be an expert in that field.
Research allows writers to write on any given topic
If you can conduct proper research you can write on any topic. Researching involves a lot of reading, which opens up your mind to a vast horizon of new knowledge. You can then express this new knowledge from your own perspective, while still presenting solid facts.
Research takes many forms
Research is not limited to reading. You can also conduct interviews, which will help you to gather information directly from an expert in the field or industry you are writing about.
Interviews present an extra advantage, since they provide an avenue to ask follow-up questions until you have gathered the information you need.
The information you gather may be satisfactory, or it could be the lead you need to conduct further research by carrying out other interviews or reading more extensively on the subject.
Multi-niche writers know how to find the information they need
By becoming an expert researcher and interviewer you can become an “expert” on any topic. This means you don’t have to be restricted to a certain niche. You just have to build your reputation as a credible writer.
You know what they say… “The devil is in the details.” And research is the exorcist that drives him out.
For more information on good sources for research, check out this post.
Latest posts by Peace Adeoye (see all)
- Want to Be a Multi-Niche Writer? Master This One Skill. - November 15, 2017