Day 4 – Back on Track

photo credit: MK Media ProductionsDarren’s Day 4 challenge was to analyze another blog in your niche.  It took me a while to get to it, but I did do so.

It was incredibly informative.

I used my other blog This Old Brain as TTR is so new.  I compared it to several other blogs in the same niche.  A couple of things I discovered that were surprising to me is that on some posts and on some days, even in general, I am doing as well or better (numbers-wise) than they are.

One of the other more intuitive learnings for me were that at times I may narrow my niche too much, and at others, get too far off base.  I am thinking that is because I am not exactly sure yet what my niche is.

Here are just a few teaser tips from 31DBB. Good questions to answer if you want to learn about your own blogging.

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?

If you want to take on building your blog as a challenge, you need 31DBBB.  I don’t care if you get it here, but get it for certain.

If you are serious about consistently building your blog, take a look at Darren’s Blog Problogger

Originally posted 2009-08-02 18:34:16. Republished by Old Post Promoter

,