3 Things to Learn From Your Blogging Rivals

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You are a blogging master right? With 20,000 visitors a day, with a six figure Income and 50,000+ subscribers.  No, I’m not asking this for a Yes or No. I don’t want both answers. Ever wondered how some blogs in your niche achieved all these milestones I mentioned above?  

Ever tried to catch up with them? If you want to grow like them the best thing to do is observe them. Yes they are your competitors/rivals, but there are many things you can learn from them.

If you are efficiently blogging and writing on a popular niche topic it’s a sure fact that you are facing some competitions. But some are too feared to face them because they are big fishes. Don’t fall back, with a little effort you can catch up with them. Don’t ever think competitions are a burden for your blog/site. Sure it’ll cause some trouble to you, but if you carefully observe your competitor you will find lot to learn. Comparing your blog to others on the blogosphere is a very nice strategy if you do it in right.

• Create a list of your competitors.

This is the main thing. There will be small fishes and big fishes in your niche’s pond. You should consider both. The stronger ones will distress you in terms of traffic, income, content and etc. There will be also smaller ones but are rising in a tremendous ratio than your blog.

The best place to find your competitors is Technorati Blog Directory. There you can find a huge list of blogs in almost all popular niches. Browse through categories and find the top rankers. Don’t add all top 100 to our list just the top 10 blogs- bookmark them. Then look into the side bar and you’ll find a list of Top 10 risers-add the first 2 or 3 to your list. Good, you are ready for the digging.

Analyse and Find what is making them stronger than you. Observe the new risers to find what the secret behind their remarkable growing is.

Yes you are getting it. Try to find answers for these questions.

1.  What They offer to the Readers

Why your readers are going to your opponent’s blog all the time, and not yours? Don’t blame Google for it! It’s because they giving something special to their readers! Then you must find the ‘something special’ inside that blog. It may be good content, writing style, user friendly layout or maybe something else. See whether it’s long -lasting. If it is very suit for your niche see if you can give a sophisticated and new version of that ‘something’. Don’t just copy it, but catch the good quality gears and make it more with some new upgrades.

2. What are their Traffic Sources

It’s sure that including “Something special “and going for sleeping won’t bring you any visitors. You need to find what’s your competitors are doing to drive traffic to their site. Try to find the best keywords driving SE traffic to that blog- use headkeys for that. Add posts including those keywords if they are suitable to your niche.

Try to find their influence in social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, stumbleupon and more. Study the way they deal their followers. How often they tweet/post? Whether they are helping others to grow – observe these stuffs. Try to know their targeted users (in terms of age, interests-you know).

You should also find the links to Big Blogs of your niche; using tools like Webmaster Tools. Links can put you ahead in Search Engines. Find who link those blogs regularly and send them a mail describing your blog. They may start to promote you.

3.  Income streams

Almost all blogs in web is looking for making some money online, but only few are (that must be you!) aware of how they can do it.  Your ads and Affiliate links must be compatible with your niche; else it would sound like adding salt to ice cream (Oh its nasty).  Just like this every one put Adsense on their blog. Adsense is not good for all niches. If you want to find the best way to make money observe the List you just created. Most of the big names in your niche must be making huge numbers. You should visit their site to know what their main income streams are. If you could not find anything much, just ask them through contact form. The Ads/Affiliate Programs/Other income streams used in those sites may perfectly suit your blog too. So keep an eye on them.

Try to understand these 3 things perfectly. Just analyse the blogs in your blogs perfectly. If there are any doubts just mail them, there will be a reply (pray for it!). Understand how the big names in your Niche maintain their selves. Try to introduce something more than they do and follow their marketing styles as well as Build a social community as they do. Whatever you adapt from them,  be genuine, Don’t be a Copycat and Be Yourself.

These are just the 3 things flashed in my mind when I set off to write this post. The list doesn’t end in these 3 things. There are many more you can learn from your Rival (or Competitor) .What would you like to learn from your competitor?  I’m looking forward for your answers…