PB004: Analyse another Blog [Day 4 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog]

How to Improve Your Blog by Watching What Other Bloggers Do It's day 4 in our 31 days to build a better blog challenge and today is one of my favourites - in fact it's something I do very regularly in my own blogging. It's all about spending time on another person's blog in your niche to observe what they do (and don't do) to see what you can learn (no magnifying glass required). This exercise can be done in 10-15 minutes (although you can take longer if you wish). Listen to this episode to find out how I do it. In this Episode Much of this episode is a series of questions for you to ask as you look at the blog that you've chosen to analyse. You might like to get the blog's page loaded up and then run todays episode for a bit while I run through some questions and then pause the episode as you do the analysis. Here are the areas to analyse that I run through: Questions to ask about how the blog you observe handles content Questions to ask about how the blog engages with their readers Questions to ask about how the blog uses social media Questions to ask about who the blog is designed Questions to ask about how the blog monetizes/sustains themselves Questions to ask about how they use email/newsletters Questions to ask about how they are getting traffic to their blog Other questions that might help you identify opportunities to work with this blog I also share 2 words of warning with this exercise. Further Reading This podcast is based upon this post on the ProBlogger Blog where some of the questions I run through are included so you've got them written somewhere. Mentioned in this episode were two tools for looking at the traffic of other blogs. They are Alexa and Compete. These don't give you exact stats and I don't find them 100% accurate as I analyse my own blogs but they can give you a bit of an idea of how a blog's traffic might be trending. For Alexa just add the url of the site in the top right corner where it says 'Browse Top Sites or Enter a Site' and then click 'Find'. For Compete just enter the URL in the front page but note that for full stats you need to pay these days so you won't get a heap of information. Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger Podcast episode 4 on day 4 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, your challenge is to analyze another blog. You're going to learn so much from this challenge and learn a whole heap about how to differentiate yourself as a blogger, too. Today's show notes are at problogger.com/podcast/4. First, a word from our sponsor 99designs the best place for new bloggers to build their brand. 99designs is the blogger's number one choice for quality graphic design. To get your logo, business card, or any blog creative you might need, visit 99designs.com/problogger and get a $99 upgrade of services for free. Hi, this is Darren from ProBlogger. Welcome to day 4 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, where each day we're giving you a little bit of teaching and a challenge to go away and to improve your blog. Today is one of my favorite activities and it's something that I do semi-regularly on my blog. I go through periods where I actually do it every day but at least once a week I do this activity. I never come away from it without learning something that I can go away and improve my blog on. The activity is this, to analyze another blog in your niche. You can do it with a blog that's not in your niche but you probably get more value by doing it with a blog on your niche. The idea is really simple. Put aside 10, 15 minutes longer if you can, and just watch what another blogger is doing. It's about watching, listening, observing, learning, how other bloggers approach what they do. Not so that you can copy them, but so that you can perhaps notice what someone else is ...