I Get to Analyse a Blog

Today is day 4 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Our task is simple (yeah right) … analyse other blog(s) in the same niche as mine and discuss!

Paul has set the challenge as a series of questions to trigger the thoughts:

1. What is your niche?

This one is easy and matches the elevator pitch I had to create for day one. My niche is “Tech ‘stuff’ in Church”. By Tech, it could encompass anything from Computers to Sound to Media to Arts to Back Stage control and so on – in short, if it has tech of some form in it, then there is a possibility I’ll touch on it at some stage (no pun intended) but primarily I focus on computing.

2. What site(s) did you analyze?

As I’m not aware of  any other blogs like mine that cater for the same eclectic area as I do that would also be considered successful I am struggling with this one. The one I did know is now a multi-author site of which I am also one of said authors cf: ChurchTechMatters.com so it seems a little self-serving to promote that.

However, I have decided to pick on one I do frequent and participate in its community, appears successful and that includes one or more of the elements I cover.

ChurchIT - a part of the 8Bit community.

The site utilises WordPress as it’s backend with the now almost ubiquitous Standard Theme. To me, the seeming overuse of StandardTheme makes the site very ‘samey’ – however, being the same as it’s sister sites which are all a part of the 8Bit network is not a bad thing.

For those that don’t know, 8Bit is a creation of John Saddington (@human3rror) and is an outlet of his hugely successful ChurchCrunch blog. ChurchIT, like its sister sites has regular bursts of content which range from nothing to multi posts per day.

The site certainly appears successful and occasionally advertises its figures but its RSS feed + Twitter Followers combined is viewable to all when the site is visited. Currently it stands at an appealing figure of 1,375. The other obvious visibility of its success is the number of comments most posts receive – again, anything from none to many dozens.

Personally I don’t like the format / layout of the site but it is easy to navigate. It does have a good visual appeal and its authors always use pictures in their posts and typically almost always to start.

My other and prime dislike of the site is the post style. These tend to be short and sweet – which may appeal to some, but when you click through expecting to see a detailed breakdown or how-to, you actually end up feeling let down. Beyond this, the posts can be short on information, and purely there for churn effect and appear to be the output of a personal surfing session. Almost as if someone visiting a site feels their day isn’t complete without first commenting on it – but only on their own blog as a post.

They do however have lengthier posts, just not as many as I’d like to see and the majority of these are by the other writers. This overall style is likely driven by John – I don’t mean this as a criticism (though it could be perceived that way) but it is what I see and not what I want.

Does the popularity of this site come from John’s style? As an overflow from his successful personal blog? As a key player / employee in social media within the church he attends or simply because he’s hitting the right note? I honestly don’t know, but do join in the community as best I can in the interests of extending my network. If that brings benefits to my blog then that’s good, though so far I don’t see any evidence for that.

In terms of sidebar usage they make use of a multi-tabbed twitter update feed for each of their sister sites so it’s easy to click and see what’s occurring without jumping between sites. There are some adverts but most are self-serving to the 8Bit network or their sponsors and the only other aspect is ‘weekly top commenters’ box.

Re-reading the above makes it sound like I’m being overly harsh or critical – far from it. I love using the site though frequently find I have to decide to miss some stuff because of the volume and I love the fact that John is passionate about what he does and about sharing it with others.

3. What did you notice about them that you  may want to incorporate into your blog?

Certainly the passion that John brings is fantastic and if I could emulate that or be perceived to be emulating that then all is good.

The other aspect is to perhaps generate more churn or fluff content that simply is what it is – place fillers to keep folks coming back.

Another aspect that I haven’t really touched on, is that John and his team are good at spotting the potential in a product or service or … and in hinting at ways it could be used by the wider church.

In terms of layout and use of elements I could do with de-cluttering mine a bit. But I’ve just gotten used to it and until I can afford to pay for a personal design here it stays.

4. How is your blog unique?  How are you going to differentiate it from the rest of the pack?

I think it is pretty unique already.

One of my motivators behind CT is that I couldn’t find another single blog offering what I wanted. Sure I found plenty that had tech content, or that were using podcats or vlogging, but none that actually tried to take foward the idea of using tech in church. Beyond that, none that tried to stick to their intended initial aim. Most became personal diaries rather than tech blogs – and whilst that has helped me make some new iFriends it hasn’t taken forward the challenge of helping others, like myself, that is an unpaid tech volunteer in a church.

How can I make it different – continue to believe that what I am doing is worthwhile and is meeting a need even if that need isn’t always talking back at me.