Let’s continue with my new niche blog start-up blogging tips. We left off with a bunch of information gathered from the competing page one websites and blogs. This info can help you find places where your competition falls short. As I mentioned, the lack of quality in the content you find on some of these pages is surprising.

But this information can also aid you in other ways. Do the blogs have a newsletter? If so, sign up for it. Yes, I know, yuck!…more email messages in your inbox. But, this is going to be valuable research for you. First, you will find out if they even send their ezine. If they do, then you have an inside look at their marketing. What kind of products do they offer? Affiliate or their own? All of this gives you pointers and insights to what you can offer and how to go about doing it.

Remember, these are the page one websites and blogs. If they are monetizing and marketing in a certain way, you can be sure they are making money and are successfully selling these products and offers, or they just wouldn’t be doing it.

Now that you’re on their list, you can begin to establish a relationship with the blogger. Why would you want to do that? Well, your competition isn’t your enemy. In fact, in a minute, you will see how they could become an opportunity for both of you. You know about commenting and leaving your signature and hopefully attracting some of their readers to your own blog.

This is a logical extension of that idea. If you take the time to network with them…you could offer them articles for their ezine or offer to do a guest post on their blog. If you’ve built your relationship properly, they will know how valuable your content is. An article from you is free quality content for them and an asset because you’ve saved them a certain amount of time or money if they outsource their content creation.

You could eventually even do a joint venture with them. Of course, whatever product you offered would not be in competition with theirs. Ideally, it would compliment what they already offer. You, in turn, might offer one of their products or articles to your readers. Or, perhaps the two of you could put your heads together and come up with a product that grew out of your relationship.

The whole point of this post is to put yourself in the shoes of a customer first. Then, look at the information and figure out what you can do with it to help monetize your blog. Sometimes, when you look at a blog you don’t really see the structure of what is there. We see the forest– but not the trees.

You are surrounding yourself with your competition and absorbing their business models. Use your imagination and creativity to see if you can’t come up with a way to borrow their model and add in your own unique ideas and come up with something totally different. Your subconscious will do the rest when you least expect it.