Blog "Spring Cleaning" - Day Four

Day 4: Analyze a top blog in your niche

This assignment was both difficult and eye-opening.  When I first read the assignment Marianna (riding with no hands) gave us today I wasn't sure that I could do it.  It took a couple of reads and clicking over to ProBlogger before I had my ah-ha moment. Before today I really didn't even know what my niche was. I mean is there a niche for a mish mash of stuff on a blog? Turns out there is - pretty amazing isn't it? I think I most closely identify with the lifestyle bloggers - which according to Mariana's post is saturated - That means a lot of people are blogging in a similar manner as I do and they are doing well at it!  Once I figured that out it was a big light bulb moment - even more that what I learned on day 1.

Once I figured that out I could get to work on the homework:

• Take 15 minutes to analyze a top blog in your niche - The blog I decided to analyze was Feels Like Home.  I picked her blog because she blogs about crafting, recipes, homemaking, and even personal stuff (all the things I like to blog about) and she does it well. Her stats show that! I used Alexa.com and Compete.com to analyze her site and well, it was hard to even compare since my site doesn't even show up on either one of those sites.  So obviously the biggest difference is in traffic.  Her site is well organized and easy to navigate even though there is a lot of information. Another big difference is in the frequency of posts.  She posts nearly every day if not every day - sometimes more than once a day! I'm not sure how she manages to do it all. Tara if you're reading this - please be my mentor :)  Maybe the more you post the faster you get at it?
• Take 15 minutes to analyze your blog - Okay this really didn't even take me 15 minutes ;) I kid - sorta.  I looked at my stats and I can see when I participate in memes I generate a lot of traffic. How much of that traffic becomes a regular reader? I have no idea.  Even on my high traffic days I don't generate many comments. How do I engage you more?   Also of course my numbers are better when I blog on a regular basis - seems you folks like reading even if you don't comment. ;)  So I'm going to make a concentrated effort to try to blog more frequently.  I know life gets in the way but other bloggers do this so it must be attainable right?  

Even though this post talked a lot about numbers that really isn't why I blog.  I enjoy blogging, so I really blog for myself and hope you are enjoying it.  Is there something more you would like to see here? Something you would like to see me blog about more often?