Competitive blogging
Can you compete with the number of ‘professional bloggers’ that now dominate the internet?
When people come to me about advice on how to sell a story, I don’t only advise them on getting their story into a national newspaper, magazine or on TV.
If someone wants to gain further coverage it is essential they get to grips with social media – so that means a presence on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for a start. But for most it also means setting up their own website or blog.
According to a new survey by workingmums.co.uk almost two thirds of working mothers have considered setting up their own businesses – and many of those are no doubt considering setting up something they can do from home such as running their own website or blog.
But is the world of blogging something the average person can still break into?
Unfortunately I fear blogging has become so competitive – and the blogs so incredibly professional – that it is something the average newcomer is going to find extremely hard to make successful these days.
Indeed my heart sank a little on behalf of those who ask me about starting up a blog, when I saw the calibre of websites that have scooped awards in the 2014 MAD Blog Awards, which claims to celebrate the very best of the British parent blogging community.
Take the winner of the Best Baby Blog category, www.mummydaddyandmemakesthree.co.uk. An extraordinarily well organised, photographed and written website, it is crafted by mum Katie, and it’s not surprising she reveals she is an ‘experienced marketing professional’ who has even done consultancy work for the likes of Coca Cola.
Another mother Lucy was Winner of the 2014 Best Mad Blog Photography award – www.capturebylucy.com has been commissioned by numerous ‘clients’ and her work featured in various magazines.
The overall winner – thefuturesrosie.com – is an informative and detailed piece of writing and diary entries about a family whose third baby, Rosie, was born with Down’s Syndrome.
While some are hosted on free blogging platforms, such as Blogger, they all all share one attribute that they are all of exceptional quality. In fact, you would be hard pressed to distinguish between these ‘amateur blogs’ and those on big company websites.
And this is just a snapshot of parenting blogs – there are of course thousands of other niches from weddings to beauty to food. And the ones at the top winning the awards are the ones to study if you are considering starting a blog yourself.
Meanwhile to be successful as a blogger you need to come up with an original concept (or at least a new angle on an old theme), possess huge commitment and drive to not only write regularly (and extremely well) but be happy to dedicate hours to refining your blog, be happy to upload superb original quality photographs (preferably very personal ones), and be website, SEO and social media savvy.
You also need to be confident in your views, happy to open up your personal life (the top read blogs all give insight into the blogger’s day to day lives, their children, their spouse, their home…) and be thick skinned.
You will definitely need to possess a healthy streak of competitiveness and be able to pick yourself up and continue with your blog when you fail to win that coveted award. An ability to reinvent your blog to continue to compete with up and coming competition is also required. Indeed as a blogger you will rarely have time to pin that new hard-won award onto your homepage as blogs need constant attention to keep them up.
For the top blogs, which gain enough web traffic, it can prove a lucrative business as there is money to be made through advertising (something I wrote about a while back.) But advertisers are fickle. Due to the sheer number of others copying and improving on your model, interest in your blog can wane as fast as it came, meaning blogging can be a short-lived venture.
And certainly all of this is bad news for anyone who thought blogging would be easy…
Have you written a blog? Have you been forced out by competition? Contact me to sell your story >>>