1. Internal
First things first, you need to look at your blog itself. Don't think about competitor or complimentary blogs. You need to look at your blog as a whole. Determine what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, where you have opportunities and where you could have threats. These days blogging is so accessible that there are so many "threats" or "competitors" who can out shine your blog or take away readers. You need to make some notes of who you may consider a threat or who you should look out for. Mind you the blogging world is not as threatening as the actually business world so think of it as friendly competition. Next determine where you could have some opportunities. Some new app you could review about, a new item of clothing, something. Think of random things you could potentially blog about that would be an opportunity for you to gain more readers or views. Then you're going to think of your weaknesses. Where does you blog lack? How do you lack? Is it in photography? Writing? Language? Content? Think it over. Then I like to think of my strengths so I feel a bit better. Here you need to think like weakness, but with what you're good at. Write these down. Understand them and just think about them.
2. External
Now, you're going to want to think of the rest of the blogging world. Your specific section of the blogging world such as fashion, sports, lifestyle, etc.. and see where you fall in that. What are others doing. What is catching your eyes and other readers eyes. Determine how influential you are to the eyes of your readers. One helpful tool for this is Hootsuite, they can show you a klout score and here you can see how influential you are to your followers on Twitter or other platforms. Where do you fall and what can you learn from other blogs that can help you stand out.
3. The Options
Here is where you're going to sit down and review all the information you have gathered and give yourself some options. What I mean by options is optional strategies to choose from. Changing the time you normally post blogs to when readers are more active. Posting another day during the week. Trying to find a brand that you could partner with. Changing the design of your blog. Take some photography or writing classes. You should plan your optional strategies based on how much resources you yourself have such as time and money. Try coming up with at least three optional strategies.
4. The Strategy
Now pick the best strategy for you and plan how you'll do that strategy. Then get to work. Work on your strategy and get your desired goal whether that was for more readers, views, or clicks. It takes time so you won't see results overnight, but eventually you should see some results if you had a sound strategy to begin with. If not, start over and see what you should do next.
Hope you found this helpful. Have any topics you would like me to cover in future Friday posts? Let me know!
Thanks for reading!
Jessie xx
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