In Day 4 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog we learned how to analyze a top blog in your niche. The reason that this is important is because of the immense amount of information you can learn through this exercise. It’s like keyword research for geeks.
Analyzing a Website Step-by-Step
So how can you accomplish this? What does this process actually look like? I am going to analyze the website of #blogchat Founder Mack Collier since he covers fairly similar, but not duplicate, content as I do. His audience is larger, but it’s not a gigantic, seemingly unreachable website so it would be a good one to take a look at.
So the first place I’ll is to Website Grader where I can evaluate my blog. The cool thing about Website Grader is that you don’t have to own a blog in order to evaluate it, AND you can enter a second url so compare the two results.
One of the things that stands out to me is the big difference in number of linking domains. This is NOT the same as the number of incoming links, but the number of domains that link in to our sites. In otherwords if I link to Mack’s site ten times, that is ten incoming links but not according to website grader – my one site linking in counts as one linking domain.
Another place to be sure to check out is Alexa. Here is the Alexa page for my site. And the Alexa page for Mack’s site. I guess it’s not a huge surprise that he is higher in search terms about social media, whereas I’m higher in search terms about freelance writing. One really interesting thing to me is that while our sites are rather close in our Alexa rankings for the US, Mack’s ranking internationally is much better than mine. That’s something to make note of.
Now I’ll check out Mack’s actual site and poke around a little bit. I see that he has a site meter set up so I’ll click over into a new tab and check out his page view information. I see now that he is getting around 100 visits per day more than I am, as I average around 60-75 visitors (not page views, that’s unique visits) per day on this site.
Taking Action On What You’ve Learned From Your Analysis
Once I’ve done that I’m going to consider what I’ve learned and, most importantly, create a few good action steps that I can take based on what I’ve seen.
I should find a way to increase the number of websites linking in to me. I think that I’ll reach out to offer some guest posts on blogs I’ve not contributed to before – perhaps one per month.
I also think that because most of the freelance writing websites that I have talked about are open to US writers only I will make a point of thinking more globally in my blog content choices. Lowering my overall Alexa rating will be a good thing, since my US rating is so low but my overall rating is much higher.
The other thing that I notice is Mack’s consistency in posting…he doesn’t post every day, but he doesn’t go more than a week between posts. That will be my biggest challenge heading into the new year is to remain consistency in providing the quality content my readers expect, while juggling all my other responsibilities.
So now it’s your turn – Choose another blog in your field that you admire, as I do Mack, and go through some of these steps. Or all of these steps. Try to find a blog that is a step or two above yours, as I would consider Mack’s to be above mine but not something that’s been in place ten years longer with 12 times the content…our blogs are rather comperable giving me a lot of good feedback. Make a list of action steps based on what you see – not with the intent of copying, but with the intent of LEARNING. Of challenging yourself. Of seeking additional tools to add to your tool box so you can become increasingly successful as a blogger.
What did you learn through this process today?
I learned that my Google Indexed pages is -1 Couldn’t find what that means, but I know it’s not good! I was surprised that my linking domains is 558. Definitely want to challenge myself on incoming traffic and learn about the Google index as well.
I believe that’s referring to the number of pages on your website Google has indexed. Are your posts and articles showing up in Google searches? If you search in quotes the exact title of one of your posts is it showing up in Google?
Well I am looking at mine and I based on what I already thought vs what I now know I need to improve my alexa ranking and the number of sites linking to me. I also think it would benefit me to improve my blog grade which was 23 but the overall grade was 91. Not as bad as I had thought! Once again, I am learning something new from you!
Thanks for the mention Ang, I love posts like this about the stats behind a blog 😉 You mention posting frequency, this is a BIG problem area for me, as I need to consistently get at least 2 posts a week up. Normally I hit this mark, but sometimes I miss. One problem I’ve had the past 2 years is that when I would travel for client work or to speak at a conference/event, I would ‘take the week off’ on posting anything new on the blog. I’m really trying to correct that this year, I’m heading to Las Vegas today, and already have 2 posts up for the week. So I am good there. I know that Chris Brogan writes his posts a couple of weeks in advance to avoid this very issue.
Thanks so much for the info and mention, Ang, I appreciate it!
I kind of geek out on the tech stuff too. I did NOT post frequently on this blog at all – in September when I had trouble with hackers and traveled to multiple conferences in 9 weeks, I posted basically nothing. And it hurt me.
I think having the twitter chat associated with your blog has helped increase your incoming links a lot too – yours were about 4 times what mine were and I’m better than most about getting links in and such. So huge kudos to you there! A friend and I just started #homechat in association with our food/home/family blogs and I anticipate good things from it.
Hi Ang – I did this earlier this week and loved making some specific action points for myself. I was pleasantly surprised that my website grade was a 97 and my blog a 93 and boy did I giggle when it said that is was readable for elementary kids. Please – elementary kids – do not read my blog! I too would like more incoming links and need to begin guest posting. I was happy that google has indexed more than 500 of my pages so I will keep writing and doing my thing!
Thanks for these tips!
The readability isn’t referencing the audience – it’s analyzing how easy your blog is to read. A newspaper person could tell you that the ideal is somewhere in upper elementary. Anything above 8th grade is above the average American reader or can be more mental work to read – especially online.
My blog ranks around 9th grade because I talk to much and my sentences are bigger than average. 🙂 In this, you totally beat me. Your rank of readability is more appealing to the general public than mine. You go girl!
Angela, I know that we shared some tips at the i_Blog conference on strategies that were similar to this, and once again, I find you reading my mind on the best way to scope out the competition (ahem.. colleagues). If people take this advice, they will find their blogs can only improve in readership over time. Great article!!