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How Competition Actually Benefits Your Blog

How Competition Actually Benefits Your Blog

Competition

When it comes to competition, we often look at people or businesses in our respective niches as enemies, and those we must beat. No matter what you blog about, chances are there is more than a small handful of people writing about the same thing. And if you sell ebooks, courses, consulting, etc., you can be sure others are as well. Naturally, we are designed to compete because before the days of modern science and technology, if we lost, we died.

Quite frankly, looking at your competition as enemies or “the bad guys,” is an absolutely backwards line of thinking. It is perfectly normal to think that way, but you are doing yourself and your blog a total disservice by not using competition to your benefit.

Gain Valuable Insight

No matter how smart or “on top of things” you think you are, there are people out there who will prove you wrong. Sometimes, there might be areas that you have overlooked, or ways of interacting with your audience for example that you never thought about before. Also, there could be valuable tools you never heard of, and maybe even ways of crafting your content to keep readers more engaged.

Instead of asking “How can I beat the competition?”, you should be asking “How can I learn from the competition?” (Tweet This). There is a good reason why some people are where they are today, and you can learn from their successes if you just open your eyes, letting your ego take a seat for a few minutes.

Access Their Audience

Anytime you visit an influential blog, there is an active community of people commenting, sharing and even buying directly, that is if that blog makes its money from more than just advertising. While getting you and your blog in front of those people is no easy task, thanks to social media, you can start a dialogue.

Since they are already engaging with people or blogs that offer content similar to yours, what you have to offer could also prove to be valuable. Now, this is not a time where you should start spamming, tweeting people links to your content before you have actually gotten to know them.

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Be a human being, not some robot, and actually show some interest in their lives. Using social media to grow your blog does take time, but thanks to your competition, you are able to tap into an audience that you may have otherwise never known about.

Motivation To Do Better

Going back to one of the first points I made, we are not always as good as we think we are. To be honest, you can probably do much better, and your competition can help make you fully aware of that. Maybe they have built their blog in a way that you wish you had, or maybe their posts are incredibly good. Whatever it is, they can serve as motivation, and inspiration for you to become even better. Of course, actions speak louder than words, but what I am getting at with all of this is that your competition can be a serious asset, not a serious pain in the butt.

Photo credit: clydeorama

View Comments (4)
  • Mike, this is so true. I have learned a great deal at looking at my so-called competition. Other lawyer websites and blogs are filled with great content as well as presentation tips. Sometimes a relationship results from interchange with your fellow attorneys. So your points are very well taken, at least in my experience.

  • I personally love competition. A rival blog gives me the opportunity to become inspired by what they write. I can usually comment on their blog as well and while providing quality comments, I can develop a reputation for myself for that niche. I also pay close attention to others who comment on their blogs looking for questions and issues they have with the niche – that will give you plenty of ideas on what to write about next! Thanks for sharing this post! :)

  • Couldn’t agree more Mike, competition is inevitable and definitely an opportunity to learn from competitors and to some extent, establish cooperation. Competition keeps one sharp and on their toes at all times and by and by improves the quality and success of their blogs.

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