How To Get Good At Blogging!

Like any career, when you start blogging, your goal should be to be the best you can be. The higher you set your goals, the better chance you will have of achieving success in your career. A lot of folks tend to look at the guys at the top and get discouraged by the amount of work and effort they have to put forth to get in a position to have a shot at stardom. Being a star doesn’t usually happen overnight, but if you ask the guys at the top, it’s really worth it.

But how do you get to the top? It’s really simple. But studying the masters in your field. Think about it. When a guy like Manning plans for his next football game, does he go in without any preparation? Blogging is a game too. If you want to become a star, you’ve got to diligently study the latest trends in your industry. Not only that, you’ve got to take a look at what the superstars are doing in your industry. By watching these guys carefully, you can figure out what they are doing right and what mistakes they are making that you should avoid. Here are the steps that I personally take to dissect what the top guys are doing:

• Blog Analysis: I analyze the top blogs in my market. I try to figure out their strengths and weaknesses. What makes them unique and what is the key deciding factor for readers who continue reading those blogs. What makes these readers loyal? If you can figure that out, there is no reason you can’t be successful in this business.
• Blog Structure: I try to put myself in position of the authors of these blogs to figure out how and why they structure their blogs the way they have.
• Writing Style: your writing style can be the difference between becoming a hit or failing miserably in the blogging business. If you are not sure what writing style works, study the top guys to figure out what they have in common.
• Angles: you should never try to be a copycat. You may achieve some modest success but copycat techniques only work for a short period of time. Why would people settle for a copycat when they can go to the real thing? I always try to compare top blogs to figure out from what angles they are approaching their topics, and how I can differentiate myself from them.
• Promotional tactics: there are so many tracking tools out there that it’s inexcusable to not spy on top bloggers. You should try to figure out what these guys are doing to drive traffic to their sites (SEO, PPC, SMO, other). You are not going to find everything, but you will find some nuggets that you can use for your own blog.
• Partnerships: by looking at who top bloggers are partnering with, you can get ideas about how to form your own partnerships. The same rule applies to sponsorships.

There are many other things you can look into to figure out what top bloggers are doing right. The deeper you get with this process the more valuable information you are going to find. You don’t have to read books to get good at blogging. You don’t even have to listen to the experts. Just watch what they do!