How to Perform a Blog SWOT Analysis for Improvement

Have you never done a blog SWOT analysis?

Does analysis freak you out? Do these acronym tools seem like they’re too difficult to figure out? Using them almost seems like a waste of time because you don’t know where to start, right?

It doesn’t have to be like that.

These tools are especially important for the success of your blog when used correctly.

The SWOT analysis tool is probably one of my favorite tools for blogging because it’s just that effective.

In this article, I’ll show you how to do a blog SWOT analysis without worrying about it being too difficult to understand.

What is a Blog SWOT Analysis?

A blog SWOT analysis is a specialized SWOT analysis that focuses on your blog as the measurable result.

SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. When identifying these factors concerning your blog, you can use the data you get from it for improvement. You can base the analysis on any concentration around your blog.

For example, you might want to perform the SWOT analysis solely for the SEO aspects of your blog. You might also perform an analysis based on your blog’s monetization ability. You might use the analysis for a mixture of different reasons all in one.

The choices are endless, and they’re up to you to decide.

Before conducting a blog SWOT analysis, there are some important tasks to complete. You want to make sure you understand the niche and objectives of your blog as a whole, and of course, you need to have a focus and goals for your SWOT analysis.

A SWOT analysis is both internal and external; therefore, you’ll need to research internal and external sources for your blog (such as your competition).

Gathering as much information and data as possible before performing your SWOT analysis is best.

Once you gather your information, you’ll be ready to move on to the next step – measuring your blog’s strengths.

Strengths of Your Blog

In this example, we’ll focus on the strength of your blog’s content, SEO, monetization, and social media marketing factors.

Starting with content, you’ll want to assess the quality of the content you produce for your blog. You can do this using different methods. You can use analytical data that you’ve recorded from readers to determine which content has done the best. You can also rate the quality of your content based on length, grammar, and writing quality compared to your direct competition. It’s best to use multiple sources to determine your blog’s strengths.

Moving on to SEO, you’ll want to assess the strengths of your SEO presence on the internet. You can use Google to perform search queries based on the terms you have targeted with your content. You can also use tools like SEM Rush and Ahrefs to rate your blog’s SEO scores. You might also use a tool like Yoast to ensure you implement your SEO strategies correctly. Again, you should use multiple tools and methods to gather this information for maximum results.

Now, tackling monetization, you want to judge the success of making money with your blog. This would typically be done when you’re starting to monetize or have been for a while. Measure what strengths are present for making money. Determine what you have done to earn a profit on your blog. You should also look at any analytical data you may have access to, as it can tell a story about how profit has increased over time. Like any measurable factor in the SWOT analysis, try using a combination of tools to help you gather this information.

And finally, move on to your analysis’s social media marketing strengths. This is where you want to find your strengths in promoting your blog on social media. Maybe a certain format of content you post gets the most readers. This could also be a method in which you have used to get the most likes or follows on your blog’s social page. You should also use any built-in analytics to help you determine strengths with your social media marketing efforts. It’s a good idea to focus on followers, comments, likes/reactions, and shares when assessing the strengths of your social media marketing efforts.

Now that you’ve completed to strengths factor of your blog SWOT analysis, it’s time to move on to the weaknesses section.

Weaknesses of Your Blog

Now, determine the weaknesses of the factors for your strength items identified above. These are your blog’s content, SEO, monetization, and social media marketing elements.

Your weaknesses may be from several sources you might want to consider.

The first weakness sources to consider are typically gaps. Look for gaps in content, SEO, monetization, and social media marketing. These would be areas in those sections that you’re not utilizing. That would be a gap in strategy.

A good example of a gap would be if you’re not creating listicles on your blog. If you Google any keyword, you’ll most likely get page 1 top organic results that are formatted into a list (i.e., 100 Ways to, 43 Free Resources for, etc.) These types of articles are called listicles and are proven to be one of the most highly-read types of blog posts online. If you don’t use them on your blog, you could identify them as a gap in your strategy and a weak point for your blog SWOT analysis.

Another source of weakness is often inconsistency. In this modern age, you want to retain a consistent flow of content, posting schedules, profit flows, and social media efforts to better serve your audience and algorithms. Being inconsistent allows your blog to become vulnerable to your competition, who is better at consistency than you.

You might also look for limits that you have reached. Limits can often keep you at a lower fame or popularity than your competitors. Are you serving everyone in your niche, or is your niche even too broad to gain enough popularity?

A common form of weakness identified in a SWOT analysis has to do with technical weaknesses. Are you weak in a certain area on the technical side? This could be anything from lacking the technical knowledge to having a slow server on which your blog is hosted.

Look through your blog for every weakness you can find. Write them down and then move on to the opportunities factor of your blog SWOT analysis.

Opportunities of Your Blog

The opportunities factor focuses on areas where you can improve your blog based on where you’re already successful but may be weak because of gaps in your strategy.

One area to focus on is trends within the niche of your blog.

For example, I have a blog about hiking in my local area. A question I’ve seen asked around social media quite often is that elderly residents are looking for more hiking trails that are easier for them to hike but still have plenty of sights to see.

I can use my above example as a trend opportunity based on all the requests. I can also use it on my content and social media marketing factors. I can create a blog post about X amount of hiking trails in the local area for elderly persons. Then, I can use my social media presence to promote the post.

Opportunities to branch out might also be points you want to consider.

On this blog, I’m always preaching for you to create a blog, a newsletter, and an online community. If you just have a blog, a newsletter is a wonderful opportunity. When you start a newsletter, you create a possibility to be able to reach your audience and customers without worrying about algorithms and AI stopping you. The same goes for an online community – it’s one more way to connect with your people without technology getting in your way.

When considering opportunities in your blog SWOT analysis, just try to focus on what’s missing that could make for the best feature or benefit on your blog.

Threats of Your Blog

The threat factor of your blog SWOT analysis is an important factor to take notice of.

Threats are what can make your blog fail and eventually cease to exist if you don’t take care of them in a reasonable amount of time. You should be worried about threats. But this analysis will help you identify them so that you can take care of them quickly.

So, what are common threats that your blog is likely faced with?

Your identified weaknesses can lead to threats if you don’t fill those gaps. That’s something to remember as you start to look for more things that threaten your blog.

Another common threat is the competitive landscape in your niche or industry. Research your competition and try to understand what they are doing good that you’re not taking advantage of on your end. What are they doing that you should be doing? How is your competition beating you at the game? That’s a threat, for sure!

You must continue to work on and improve your expertise in your niche or industry. This is because many threats come from industry changes and trends. By developing your expertise in the areas you blog about, you can ensure that you understand the latest trends and industry changes that will impact the strength of your blog.

You definitely want to keep the technical side of your blog in mind for identifying threats. Technology changes are always an issue if you don’t keep everything current. This can be as simple as updating WordPress to the latest version to fix security issues that can negatively impact your SEO if they are vulnerable to intrusion. You must stay on top of issues like this.

The economy and regulatory changes can sometimes impact your blog, especially in certain niches and industries. If there is a change in laws around your niche or people quit spending money due to economic challenges, that might present threats to your blog. Another side of this can be algorithm changes or policy changes on social media. If Google changes its algorithm, you may have to change your content to retain your SEO ranking. If Facebook changes its features due to regulatory changes, it could present a threat to your social media marketing efforts.

Consider all of the potential threats against your blog in your SWOT analysis so that you know what to be ready for and how to mitigate them from happening to you.

Responding to Your Blog SWOT Analysis

After you’ve finished finding your blog’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, it’s time to take action and respond to it all.

A blog SWOT analysis opens you up to make changes for improvement.

We used content, SEO, monetization, and social media marketing in this example. However, you can use any factors other than these. This was merely an example of the analysis to give you an idea of what to do.

Now it’s time to put that researched and analyzed data to the test.

You should be developing a strategy to further leverage your strengths. These make your blog stronger in your niche. You must continue to improve them. Don’t make the mistake of being in a safety bubble, thinking your strengths will just sit around the remain there. As changes happen, those strengths can turn into weaknesses and threats. By enhancing them, you might be able to solve weaknesses that you’ve also detected.

On the topic of weaknesses, you need to address them. Most weaknesses are gaps in your blog that you need to fill. If my example of not using listicles is your weakness, then start creating list-based posts for your blog to fill the gap of not having this beneficial post type present.

Take opportunities to your favor. These present beneficial actions for your blog. If you find an opportunity is present, take advantage of it as quickly and strategically as possible.

Like with any strategy, threats should be mitigated. In emergency planning, threats are mitigated to reduce injury and damage. The same goes for business and even blogging. If a threat is present, research what it takes to mitigate it and take action.

Focus on improving the positives – strengths and opportunities. Address and solve the negatives – weaknesses and threats.

And after you’re all done, come up with some more factors and do another SWOT analysis for your blog. It’s a wonderful tool that can be used again and again.

And that sums up how you can use a blog SWOT analysis to improve your blogging needs. I use this analysis at least once a month to improve various portions of my blog. If you found this article to be helpful, follow me on X for even more daily blogging advice. And please share this article with those you know who will enjoy reading it.

About the Author

Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers that follow this blog. Shawn also offers a variety of services for extra help in the area of content creation, blogging, forums, and digital marketing. Learn more about Shawn Gossman by clicking here.