Study the Competition

One of the biggest mistakes many new bloggers make is the failure to find out what’s already on the market for their idea. There are claims that a new blog is born every half-second. This means there are over 175,000 blogs created every day. Technorati, the world’s largest blog directory, is currently tracking over 50 million blogs. Your original idea probably isn’t very original. Frightened? Don’t be. By reading StartBlogging.net you already have a huge advantage over most of the blogs at Technorati.

Before continuing with your idea, you’ll want to find out who some of the bigger names are in your category. You don’t know anything about blogs? That doesn’t matter. All you need to do is type the idea of your blog into Google and you’ll get a list. For example, if you wanted to start a relationship and dating website, you could search for “relationship blog” or “dating blog” and now you have a list of the bigger names in the relationship and dating theme.

I want you to spend some time reading a few of the blogs in your category. Figure out what makes them work and why people continue to read them and comment on them. If they’re listed on the first page on Google for their theme, they are obviously doing something right. Study their content and figure out what you can do to become just as successful. Also, try and leave a few comments on some of their posts. You’ll want the author of the blog to be able to recognize your name.

I also want you to find other popular blogs because these people will most likely become your friends, as well as, your biggest competition. Blogs are all about community and you’ll want to establish ties with other people in the same category as your new blog. Befriending other popular bloggers will help you in the long run.

Click here to learn how to come up with a name for your new blog.