You task today in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge is to spend some time on a successful blog in your niche.
The purpose of this task is not to promote yourself on the blog – but rather to spend time watching, listening and observing how the blog operates with the goal of letting what you learn help shape your own blogging strategy.
There is a lot that a blogger can learn about spending time on other blogs (particularly those who are doing well). You can pick up all manner of ideas, strategies and tips both things that they do well that you might like to emulate but also things that they’re missing that could help you to differentiate yourself.
Here’s how I suggest you go about today’s task:
1. Identify a successful blog in your niche
You might already know of these sorts of blogs or you might need to do a little research.
If you’re not sure which one to choose head to Technorati’s top 100 blogs or Google Blog search and attempt to find a blog that is doing well on your topic. If you can’t find one that is exactly on your topic don’t stress too much – choosing a blog on a related topic will work too.
2. Take 15 minutes to do some analysis of the blog in some of the following areas
Content:
- What topics are they covering?
- What topics are they ignoring?
- What voice/style do they post in?
- How often are they posting?
- What level are they pitching their posts at (beginners, advanced etc)
Reader Engagement:
- What topics generate most conversation?
- What styles of posts seem to connect with readers best?
- What questions are readers asking in comments?
- What complaints do you see readers making in comments?
- What tools/mediums is the site using (eg: are they using Twitter, forums etc)
Design:
- What first impression does their design give?
- What have they done well? What have they done poorly?
- What Options do they give readers to subscribe?
Monetization:
if you’re attempting to make money from your blog this will be relevant as it will give you hints as to how you might make money:
- what advertisers are targeting this blog?
- what type of affiliate programs are they promoting?
Traffic:
You might also like to head to a site like Alexa or Compete to do some analysis of the blogs traffic levels. Is it growing, plateauing or shrinking. Alexa also gives some stats (not always accurate) on page views, time on site, sites linking in, bounce rate, where the audience is from (geographically), where people go on the site etc.
SEO:
If you have some competence in SEO you might like to check out how they’re doing in some of these areas:
- Who is linking to this blog? (use the link:www.blogurl.com command in Google to find out)
- What does their source code reveal about how they’ve set up their site
- If they have an open or unlocked stats package what can you learn from their stats? What pages are popular? Where does their incoming traffic come from?
Really the numbers of questions you could be asking is limitless but what you’re attempting to do with this exercise is to identify what is working well on the other site and what opportunities there might be to position your blog in ‘gaps’ that the blog is leaving.
When you do this type of analysis with a number of blogs in your niche you should begin to see some patterns emerging. Things that consistently work on blogs in your niche and things that perhaps you could do that nobody else is doing.
Two quick words of warning:
1. Don’t become Obsessed with what other Bloggers are Doing
A trap some bloggers fall into is spending so much time watching their ‘competitors’ that they spend less time actually building something of value of their own. This analysis is useful to do every now and again – but don’t let it become something that you do at the expense of other core activities on your own blog.
2. Don’t Copy – Be Unique
Another trap I see some bloggers doing is virtually replicating every aspect of another blog. While there’s a lot we can learn from others and lessons we can take from what others are doing – if you simply copy everything another blog does you don’t differentiate yourself and give potential readers no real reason to read you instead of others.
How did you go with your Analysis?
As usual – feel free to share what you learned from this task in comments below.
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Update – You can also share, discuss, and explore this Daily Task over at the forum: Day 4 – Analyze a Top Blog in your Niche
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For the life of me I just can’t find popular blogs in my niche. Does anyone visit a blog related to health or diseases frequently?
Hi Roy – I just googled ‘health blogs’ and ‘health bloggers’ and there seems to be quite a few. Which are the most popular – not sure about that – but I’d suspect a bit of surfing through the search results and you’ll find some. Also Technorati has a section in their directory for health and fitness blogs – should be some in there.
This is an excellent task! If somthing stands out to me on another blog even if its not in my niche I often try and find a way to apply the idea to my own blog whilst still putting my own spin on it.
Most off these ideas are still in my note book so perhaps now is the time to put them into action! :)
This is a great task. It’s just like any other creative discipline:
The best writers usually read a lot of books. The best musicians are usually compulsive listeners. You can’t expect to think of everything alone.
Several suggestions:
1. Try to do this with several “top blogs,” as different techniques are successful for different people. One perspective is rarely enough.
2. Try to look beyond just raw traffic. If you have access to stats packages, look for a blog which has grown quickly, not necessarily one of the largest size (which may be largest simply by virtue of being the oldest).
3. Stay within yourself. I blog about fashion, but I’m never going to be The Sartorialist (whose blog is almost entirely pictures).
4. On the other hand, you can learn from all of these people; if they do video and you don’t, how do they drive video watchers to the blog (or vice versa). That same process could be useful if you release an eBook, for example.
5. As always, don’t be afraid to ask questions. At the largest sites, you might not get an answer, but it’s worth finding out (this is information too, does the blogger have a system for dealing with a large influx of questions?).
-Barry
One thing I always run into when viewing other popular blogs is that their design is so much better then mine. Then I have to remind myself, great content is what is important for now, I can have the blog redesigned later.
I like this challenge. It is going to force me to up my game when I see what others are doing and learn from them. I do not read enough blogs in my niche, which is small business advice. Looking forward to this!
My niche is “Blogging Tips and resources”. I will go for Daily Blog Tips and inform back here.
This is an area that people must walk the fine line. Not just in blogging. Some get too focused on the competition. Many industries are full of “Me Too Marketers”. They see someone else do something successful (or they assume it is successful), and then they do the same thing.
On the flip side, you need not re-invent the wheel everytime… so paying attention to others is smart
I try to observe, learn, and still just be myself.
That being said, my blog is a plain template and in need of a style re-do. That is what I learned from this exercise — although I already knew that!.
http://www.thomsinger.blogspot.com
“I try to observe, learn, and still just be myself.” – nice one Thom! I think that that is a great balance.
As a matter of fact I’ve just been looking into one of my favorite blogs when you tweeted about the new assignment. It almost seems that things have a natural flow from one thing to the other.
I got wondering what exactly makes a blog tick.. how does it roll uphill so to speak.
Came to the conclusion that there are three essentials in the blogposts:
1. Write great and original content
2. Be ruthlessly honest in your content
3. Do this one post at a time
Well, that was the result of looking into a few blogs actually. Design is next n my list to tackle in my own blog. I’m not entirely happy with the current looks.
Thanks again for a few great ideas, could you by any chance work some assignments on SEO into the challenge? Would be great to get the hang of that bit.
There will always a Triple T in each blog – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly – and in a simple ways, we should digg it to make a good improvement to our blog.
How they works, plans, strategy, etc, should be well cover in our mind as a good resources.
I totally agree with this one Darren. And sometimes, i make them too as a rival – virtual rival, to motivate my self.
This is a great tip and one that was offered to me last year by a friend. Now that my infant blog has a reasonable amount of posts I’ve decided to implement this strategy. 3 months of SEO spying has resulted in my traffic going from 80 uniques per day to roughly 400. I’d also like to add that article marketing was also used and now the young blog sits at a healthy PR(2) only after 6 months. Am I happy, I’m ecstatic.
What your doing here Darren is a great thing, an outstanding thing and may the laws of reciprocity pay you back ten-.fold. Long time reader and follower, first time commenting.
Hello all,
I’m a firm believer in the idea that if you don’t ask, you don’t get. So, today I’m going to ask for your help.
Yesterday Darren challenged us to try several different methods for promoting our blog posts. And I didn’t do it. Because I knew that I was going to do it today instead.
Today, the webmaster of a small independent news site in Utah is going to post a story I wrote about the Mormon blogosphere. I put some real thought and effort into the piece. It’s important to me that it does well on pageviews.
So, I’m asking for your help. I have created a post on my personal blog detailing my promotion plan for this story. I encourage anyone who’s interested to read my blog post and see if there’s some way you might be able to help.
My philosophy in life is that I always remember my friends. My philosophy on the Web is that I remember those who are relevant, useful and friendly to me.
If you pitch in on this, please don’t be shy about letting me know. And I’ll be sure to remember you when the time is right.
This includes you, Darren. I’d love for you to contribute to this effort, if you can.
Please read my blog post here:
http://utahnewsblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/help-blogger-out.html
Thank you,
Leo Dirr
Twitter: UtahNewsGuy
Good task. For me, this task is already a regular part of my strategy, especially now because I’ve started two new blogs which I am taking in a completely different direction from what I’ve done before. My biggest problem as a blogger has always been staying in the same place for more than a few years. I blog like I live; as a nomad. And it’s time I settled down at least blog-wise. Hopefully, 31DBBB will assist me with this. As to monetising; I left corporate writing in 2005 to go on sabbatical. Now, I am mostly unemployed, except for a few odd assignments here and there. I could go full-time into ghostwriting for online marketing; but I have issues with quantity over quality offerings. Anyway, my ramble (I tend to do that) is meant to say that I would love to make money from my blog or from my writing again full stop. But I need to find out if I’ve (still) got something to offer and, if so, in what niche’ I truly belong.
My niche is Generation Y blogs. I have being doing some research over the last few weeks.
I need to concentrate on:
1 – Write good content, engage the readership
2 – Tidy up my design
3 – Engage in some monetization
Time to get back to it!
Wow. This is something I’ve done a little bit of from time to time, but never in really concentrated amounts. I do get emails from people who tell me they have just spent hours on my site and are excited about the information and the positive way that I present the info. I’ve just never really thought of spending an hour on another site and taking notes.
How exciting! I know what I’ll be doing this evening…
Does anyone know of blogs regarding Management Consulting to the Construction and Engineering world?
How about Business in Argentina?
Thanks!
Doing this type of “external audit” has been suggested by people before, but I’ve never done it. I think a lot of people find such a thing intimidating (since there is so much to look for).
Ramit Sethi (of I Will Teach You To Be Rich) reminds us; “doing something 85% right is much better than not doing it all”
Thus, don’t worry about getting every detail, come up with a list of things to check, and then go check them.
I wrote up a basic list based on Darren’s post, and created a simple Excel spreadsheet which you can use as a checklist when completing this task. If you want to write by hand, you might wanted to put some space between the categories.
http://www.3stylelife.com/Problogger/basicbloganalysis.xls
-Barry
I think the type of audience you’re after and your approach are also important.
John Chow is also considered a “Top blog” in the Make money online niche, but it’s in a totally different league than Problogger. JC talks a lot more about himself, where DR writes more in a teaching style. Their styles attract different major audiences: JC -> Young Get rich quick’ers, DR -> more mature entrepreneurs.
Keeping points like this in mind when doing this task can help you avoid going in a direction you don’t want (or need) to be going, and realize whose is really the top blog in your niche.
Good tips, thanks.
Great! I know some sites in Spain regarding manga and anime and i analyzed some time ago but now i want to give my own vision to my blog because, as you said, we must not become obsessed with other blogs, we must be unique.
I am back with my observations! Here they are:
Content
1. Daily Blog Tips is covering topics related to blogging mainly Content, SEO and Design. However, these days, Daniel is writing a lot about Internet Tools.
2. Tutorials are missing. Not much “How To” posts!
3. Casual style. Maybe because I am habitual!
4. Posting daily on weekdays.
5. Most of the posts are targetted on beginners.
Reader Engagement
Most conversation generating posts are Reader Question and Answers. Many people add advice to these posts. Readers don’t ask much questions in comments. Mostly, questions are of basic level. Daniel uses Twitter for Daily Blog Tips.
Design
Design is simplistic. Not much pomp and show. Best thing about it is that its easy on eye without much distractions. There’s nothing poor(according to me!)
Readers get E-Mail and RSS as subscription options. Additionally, Daniel also has a newsletter.
Monetization
Ad networks, content and design related advertisers are there. I have not noticed any affiliate links(I have been a reader since September 08)! (Either I am blind or Daniel does a good job with them!) :-)
SEO
Traffic comes mainly from blogging related websites. These are linking a lot to DBT. The popular posts are mainly list posts ( + a Blogger Face-Off Post featuring Shoemoney and Darren)
So here are my lessons:
1. Simple designs do work. No need to get a costly design.
2. Engaging Readers and asking them questions brings in more comments.
3. Lot of ads are not necessary to earn good income. Less ads can be more effective.
4. Go straight to the point, no need to write big intros for posts!
@Leo Dirr: You didn’t do yesterday’s pitch yesterday, you’re doing it now! And I know it got my attention.
HI Darren,
I am running the Finanace blog and this tips might be more useful. I will be looking to the top blogs and learn how they have implemented. Like Thomos said, I will stick to myself. These I am learning many new stuffs related to blogging, one great advantage I added with my blog is I changed writing style after started reading your blogs. Thank you for the tips.
Thanks,
Krishna
I know which bloggers in the real estate market I like. Blogs I like are usually written with humor, no matter what they are about.
I was looking for local people to comment on my blog so that I would know they are there. Then I just realized (an aha moment as I was writing this) I just need rankings on goggle, etc, so that when locals are searching for a reatlor, they find ME. When they find me, they will see interesting content that grabs them. Because I blog on Activerain, a large real estate community, many of my comments are from other realtors. But that really is ok, they are comments!
I may have strayed here, but I really did just “get it” for myself! Very important to write well about a subject, with humor and in a natural voice.
Just a quickie before I get stuck in, how do we do SEO with WordPress apart from logging relevant tags. As we get further into this it appears to me that integrating WordPress into a main web site where I have more control over key words, descriptions etc is the way to go.
Any views anyone?
http://www.kevincumbria.wordpress.com
Hi Kevin – You absolutely have more control over your blog by using self-hosted WordPress rather than WordPress.com. ESPECIALLY with SEO and in terms of making the power of WP work for you and you alone. In my opinion? WP.com (free WordPress) blogs are great for keeping up with friends and family, but if you’re serious about making a business out of (or because of, or with) your blog, then you need to go the self-hosted route.
(Side note: I’m a WP expert and SEO specialist, have been for many years. I’m really speaking from experience here… ;) )
This is really excellent advice. I have been blogging for 2 years, but don’t believe that I have ever seriously sat down and done this. I think you found a way to really learn from someone already having success.
Thanks,
Fred
The best blogs in my niche (food/cooking) all have fabulous pictures. Big beautiful glossy ones. Drool-inducing loveliness.
I am NOT a photographer. I did post my very own pic at http://beyondbeeton.com/weight/speedy-mini-post-vietnamese-prawn-salad and even my sister (who reads my blog) told me it was rubbish.
Earlier today I was chatting with some of the popular bloggers in my niche and they were encouraging me to keep practising and learn (yep, Digital Photography School is where it is at) if I want to do that.
I realised that I just don’t have the energy for it. My blog is also about balancing life in the kitchen and life in the office and I just don’t love the idea of photography enough to devote any more time to it.
So I’m going to pay my clever brother-in-law with food (read: bribe) to take some photos for me. Problem solved!
Guess I’ll be analysing your Photography blog today, Darren. ;)
Useful tip. Most bloggers will follow blogs in their niche already, but it won’t hurt to really think about how they do it..
As I am constantly reading blogs in my niche this was quite easy. My latest post is all about related blogs which are a lot bigger then mine and have several writers but that’s because they have attracted some big names in SEO to write for them.
One thing I have noticed (and is the reason for my blog) is most are for people who are in the SEO industry and have been for a while, sure there are some posts which are “basic seo” etc but there is a lack of beginners guides to SEO for those who are starting out in the industry or for other bloggers who want to learn the basics so they can apply it to their own sites.
It’s great to see so many people actively engaging with one another for these tasks and taking time to view one another’s blogs to see how we are all progressing. Thanks to all who have visited and especially those who have left comments!
Dan
I think we can certainly learn from observing and implementing the best-practices of others. With the wealth of blogs that are crying out for attention, the biggest challenge is being unique in your niche. If you can find a way to stand out and add value, then you gain credibility for being a valuable voice in a noisy online world.
This is a good idea, but I do not know of any other sites doing the same or similar thing as us.
I am really inspired by the blogs dumb little man and zenhabits.
They have clear, simple and effective designs and their content is straight to the point.
I personally tried to go another way design-wise. There are so many magazine style blogs that it becomes more and more difficult to differentiate from them. Even if your blog is a niche the visitor is just used to the common design and bounces off ( just my two cents)
I’m building a MMO blog, I know this is very competitive keyword and there are tonnes of established MMO blog out there, I think they have built their blog for many years and have very good readership since long time ago. I’ve found, observed, learned, applied, and just blog as myself. Copying content will be just sending you to the end of the road.
Regards,
Lee
I wast just going to write this thing on my blog,
you really are a problogger, You Steal Ideas from Pople’s Mind!!!
Well, I’ve been looking, and haven’t found what I would consider a popular blog which also covers web design, marketing, and PR all at once (feels good to be relatively unique, by the way).
I’ve been looking over some random finds, though, and asking myself these questions, now.
Just looking at the assignment, it didn’t seem like it would help that much without directly copying everything, but now that I think about it, I can compare their blogs with mine, and see what I should change and what I should keep.
So thank you. It really opened the door to exploration.
This is a great idea, but unfortunately there are no successful blogs in my niche – or at least, not any I’ve been able to find. Maybe I can cast my net a little wider and look for somewhat related niches.
This is a great idea Darren. I try to analyze there design first because this will help readers to stay there for long.
@Lara,
I’m sure you’re an expert on much more than just WP. Your wisdom is a bright, shining light.
Thanks for taking the time to share your advice.
This is a useful exercise. I’ve looked at Men with Pens, which I’ve followed from the start. It’s got a no-nonsense, tell it like it is approach that seems to resonate with readers and everything gets comments and discussion. Great titles seem to be the difference between what attracts a little attention and what attracts a lot, but I also think the personalities of the people posting have a lot to do with it. I think when you are being yourself, people respond to that.
i know some of my site was great and successful. But many of blog still need progress. I will do my best soon.
Darran, A question though,
I have a problem that main competitor in my niche (Politics of India) are posting too many links and mostly links, whereas I am trying to be voice of my own.
This approach lead to those blog becoming like aggregater for niche and people prefer to subscribe to those blogs instead of mine.
So, what to do?
That was hard work Darren, but very interesting, and I plan to do one of those each week. The topics with the most comments was fascinating and very consistent, so that gives me a brilliant pointer to content.
Don’t understand the locked or open stats part though. Does anybody have open stats? Does that simply mean you can see how many reads a post has had?
Enjoying this – thanks!
Great idea.. Since I write a blog that is, in part, focused on mid-life, single women issues.. I find the Technorati site to be a little more testosterone loaded than I might want. So, I will search some of the women blog sites. Though it may serve me as well to see how the more popular male bloggers are doing. I just found this blog and will persue it later in the day. http://www.blogtrepreneur.com/2009/02/05/100-must-read-blogs%E2%80%A6by-women/
As a newbie to blogging some of the more technical info you’re sharing goes right over my head! And, for now I think that is ok.
I think this is a great idea to set some goals. I looked at several of the top personal finance blogs to analyze exactly why they are successful.
For me, most of the personally connect with the readers in a profound way. They’ve gone through a personal journey out of debt and posted intimate details along the way. Therefore, the reader’s feel very attached to the blogger and even to the blog as a whole.
I’m really looking forward to doing this assignment today. For the most part, I do visit other blogs in my niche but I’ve never analyzed any in depth. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of losing my personal inspiration and vision for my blog and get caught up in the trap of copying. Since I’ve pretty much established my voice now and set the tone for my blog, this would be a great time to do some analysis.
The one thing that I know that my blog is missing right now is SEO. I feel that if I could get this aspect down and drive some traffic to my site, my blog has the “potential” to attract a good readership. My blog is still young (3 months) and there is lots of room for me to grow as a blogger, but I am very optimistic at this point.
I have already found one way to set myself apart from other bloggers in my niche based on an observation I made whilst visiting other blogs. I’ve been working on it for a few weeks and I will be ready to go live with it within a week I hope.
I’ll be back with my report later.
WOW , this is exactly what i does :)
but compete.com was new to me ..
thanks Darren.
@Kevin, forgot to say thanks for the Excel spreadsheet. Great idea and saved me some time. :)
huge task for one day…but good to recognize the need for competitive research.
for this task i considered author blogs at redroom, where i also have a blog. many of the features are standard so i focussed on which ones have the most comments and why. they are posts by somewhat well-known writers of personal nature and timely topics, asking questions and not going on too long. (writers like to go on too long).
Interesting plan. What I have seen under parenting is either very personal blog style or magazines with various topics and contributors. I also realised that my niche is highly competitive and I need to be very outstanding to make my mark.
Hi ya Darren,
Was reading through the posts and saw a lot of people having trouble finding others doing same in their niche so that we can do this analysis.
I did something kind of interesting along these lines recently (in the last 2 weeks) as an option which I’d like to share.
I created a private NING community specifically dedicated to my niche and set a few rules down: have to be blogging about ELT; have to be/have been English Language Teachers, blogging on topic, for min 3months etc. Then I moved 10 pages in deep in google and hunted some of them down.
Already have a nice group of 25 global bloggers and will stop at 100. We help each other out as well as being able to see (and they can see on mine) what our mutual strengths and weaknesses are. Together we’re stronger ;-).
Karenne
Once again, Darren, excellent suggestions.
Before I started my blog (now one full week old!) I tried to look at as many as I could, but I didn’t have the focus of what to look for that your posts suggests. Thanks for the thorough “checklist” of things to consider.
And thanks, too, for those good words of warning. It is easy to become obsessed with watching everyone else. One thing that I am trying to do is keep an informal log of how I spend my blogging time. I’m trying to keep track of how much time I actually spend writing, watching others, researching, or promoting. It will be interesting to see where the balance is.
This series is great for those who have been at this for a while and also for those of us who are newbies. Thanks!
Again, excellent advice Darren. When I started up my two blogs, this is exactly what I did. Thing is, I blog about food and recipes… so you can imagine the IMMENSE competition. I try to focus the one blog on commentary and the occasional GOOD recipe, (Mac and Cheese does not cut it for me, unless there is something special about it,) the other is at a niche. (Game night recipes and planning.)
The part that gets me Darren… if a person is just starting up, pro themes like Thesis are not in the budget. What would you recommend for a free template for monetization?