No matter what content niche you belong to or even if you cover a range of topics you are always going to have competitor sites trying to obtain the same audience. Part 4 of the 31 day improvement challenge over at ProBlogger.net recommends that you identify a competitor and run a detailed analysis on the site and the way it operates to ensure you are doing everything possible to attract users and learn from any mistakes.
For this exercise I’m going to focus on the very well known eConsultancy
Content:
- What topics are they covering?
- All aspects of digital marketing both here in the UK and Worldwide. Defiantly a very topical blog with current events and trends taking center stage.
- What topics are they ignoring?
- Not much if I’m honest, eConsultancy are well known in the digital marketing industry and offer other services such as training so they need to cover the full spectrum of content. Maybe more case studies would be beneficial.
- What voice/style do they post in?
- All posts are informed and researched well.
- How often are they posting?
- Multiple times a day, they have a series of editorial individuals.
- What level are they pitching their posts at (beginners, advanced etc)
- Mixture of both really, there are some basic guides on there and some more search engine optimisation related content.
Reader Engagement:
- What topics generate most conversation?
- The most commented posts cover Twitter and SEO so I would have to say topical comments.
- What styles of posts seem to connect with readers best?
- Their most viewed post covers 50 SEO tips for online retailers.
- What questions are readers asking in comments?
- More giving examples than asking.
- What complaints do you see readers making in comments?
- None (always a good thing)
- What tools/mediums is the site using (eg: are they using Twitter, forums etc)
- Full community solution including commenting, forums, social networks, emails etc
Design:
- What first impression does their design give?
- The site was recently re-designed. It is a nice and clean layout that integrates their paid for services well.
- What have they done well? What have they done poorly?
- Simple and effective layout always let you know where you are and where you are going. There is also a very good integration with the community aspect of the site.
- What Options do they give readers to subscribe?
- eConsultancy allow people to follow them on Twitter, through email and basis RSS feed. They have a substantial following on Twitter so you can imagine that RSS feeds and emails would be the same.
Monetisation:
- what advertisers are targeting this blog?
- The site doesn’t carry any advertising. eConsultancy make their money from paid for services such as training and white papers.
- what type of affiliate programs are they promoting?
- None that I can see.
SEO:
- Who is linking to this blog?
- eConsultancy gets linked to from a large number of sites. However in a recent re-launch they slightly messed up their 301 redirects which meant that their page rankings in Google dropped significantly. This seems to have sorted itself out now though as the site is once again ranking highly.
Completing a review of a blog using the above criteria is a great idea if you work in a small neiche. By compeleting these on a quarterly basis against all of your identified competitors you’ll be able to tell the direction blogs are taking and the type of audiance they are trying to attract. This information should form part of your longer term plan to grow your blogs visitor numbers.
