Blog Exercise #4

Analyze a top blog in your niche.

As little as 15 minutes and the questions below can help shape your own blogging strategy. Strong strategy lends to blog success.
First, select a successful blog on the same subject as yours or a related subject. Analyze, using these questions:
What topics are they covering?
What topics are they ignoring?
What voice/style do they post in?
How often are they posting?
What topics generate the most conversation?
What styles of post seem to connect with readers best?
What questions are readers asking in the Comments?
What complaints do you see readers making in the Comments?
What’s your first impression from their design?
What have they done well? What have they done poorly?
What options do they give readers to subscribe?

Two quick words of warning:
1. Maintain the Focus on Your Own Blog.A trap some bloggers fall into is spending so much time watching their “competitors” that they spend less time actually building their own blog. This analysis is useful to do every now and again, but don’t let it be at the expense of other core activities on your own blog.
2. Be Unique.Another trap some bloggers fall into 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 fail to differentiate yourself and potential readers have no real reason to read you instead of others.