Should I Build It Should I Build It
04 May 2025
SEO

I'd like to build firstly content blog about some first topic. Then ...

...I'd like to scale it with building more such content blogs.

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.

Your are here

Based on your idea to build content blogs, you're entering a crowded space, as indicated by the 24 similar products we found. This places you firmly in what we call the 'Swamp' category, where many mediocre solutions already exist. The average engagement for similar products is low, with only 3 comments per launch, suggesting it's hard to stand out. Moreover, the absence of net use and buy signals in the comments of similar products indicates that people neither explicitly want to use or buy these solutions, which is typical for this product category. Given the existing landscape, it's crucial to understand why current solutions haven't fully succeeded before investing significant time and resources. You need a differentiated approach or target a niche to avoid getting lost in the swamp.

Recommendations

  1. Begin with thorough market research to pinpoint the shortcomings of existing content blogs. Understand why they haven't resonated with users or achieved significant traction. Dive deep into user feedback, identify pain points, and look for unmet needs that you can address with a novel solution. For example, the 'Minimalist Blogging Platform' received criticism for lacking an 'About' page and anti-scam measures; avoid these mistakes by including these features from the start.
  2. Rather than trying to compete head-on with established content platforms, identify a specific niche or underserved audience. Focus your content and features on catering to their unique needs and interests. Consider a niche like 'AI-generated blogging' - but ensure content is higher quality and doesn't come across as 'blogspam', addressing criticisms found in similar product launches.
  3. Explore the possibility of creating tools or plugins that enhance existing blogging platforms instead of building a standalone blog. This would allow you to leverage the user base and infrastructure of established platforms, reducing your development and marketing costs. It will also give you insights on which features are most wanted, giving you feedback on a potential v2 product in the future.
  4. Before investing heavily in content creation, validate your idea by building a minimal viable product (MVP) and gathering feedback from your target audience. This will help you refine your concept, identify potential issues, and ensure that your content resonates with your intended users. Remember the user experience is important: the 'I made a tool to help creators to easily share content and grow online' was criticized for typos.
  5. Focus on building a community around your content blog by actively engaging with your audience, responding to comments, and fostering discussions. Encourage user-generated content and create a sense of belonging. This will help you build a loyal following and differentiate yourself from other content blogs. Note that similar product launches were criticized when SEO was emphasized over content quality.
  6. Given that you plan to scale to multiple content blogs, develop a robust content strategy that focuses on providing high-quality, engaging, and valuable content to your target audience. Invest in SEO optimization, but prioritize creating content that is both informative and entertaining. Remember that Google is getting stricter on AI content, and users find it unethical to quote themselves in user testimonials or pretend to be a user.
  7. Continuously monitor your performance metrics, such as website traffic, engagement rates, and user feedback. Use this data to identify areas for improvement and optimize your content strategy. Also, keep an eye on what works for your competition: 'ContentNext - Supercharge your Next.js site with a powerful headless blog' received positive feedback for simplifying blogging for Next.js users and indie makers.
  8. Consider postponing this idea and exploring adjacent problems that might be more promising. For example, instead of building a content blog, you could create a tool that helps content creators manage and optimize their existing blogs. Or, find a more attractive space where there's less competition.

Questions

  1. Given the low engagement observed in similar content blog launches, how will you ensure that your content stands out and captures the attention of your target audience?
  2. Considering the criticisms of AI-generated content, what specific strategies will you employ to ensure that your content is perceived as authentic, valuable, and trustworthy by your readers?
  3. How will you differentiate your content blog from the numerous other blogs in the market, and what unique value proposition will you offer to attract and retain readers?

Your are here

Based on your idea to build content blogs, you're entering a crowded space, as indicated by the 24 similar products we found. This places you firmly in what we call the 'Swamp' category, where many mediocre solutions already exist. The average engagement for similar products is low, with only 3 comments per launch, suggesting it's hard to stand out. Moreover, the absence of net use and buy signals in the comments of similar products indicates that people neither explicitly want to use or buy these solutions, which is typical for this product category. Given the existing landscape, it's crucial to understand why current solutions haven't fully succeeded before investing significant time and resources. You need a differentiated approach or target a niche to avoid getting lost in the swamp.

Recommendations

  1. Begin with thorough market research to pinpoint the shortcomings of existing content blogs. Understand why they haven't resonated with users or achieved significant traction. Dive deep into user feedback, identify pain points, and look for unmet needs that you can address with a novel solution. For example, the 'Minimalist Blogging Platform' received criticism for lacking an 'About' page and anti-scam measures; avoid these mistakes by including these features from the start.
  2. Rather than trying to compete head-on with established content platforms, identify a specific niche or underserved audience. Focus your content and features on catering to their unique needs and interests. Consider a niche like 'AI-generated blogging' - but ensure content is higher quality and doesn't come across as 'blogspam', addressing criticisms found in similar product launches.
  3. Explore the possibility of creating tools or plugins that enhance existing blogging platforms instead of building a standalone blog. This would allow you to leverage the user base and infrastructure of established platforms, reducing your development and marketing costs. It will also give you insights on which features are most wanted, giving you feedback on a potential v2 product in the future.
  4. Before investing heavily in content creation, validate your idea by building a minimal viable product (MVP) and gathering feedback from your target audience. This will help you refine your concept, identify potential issues, and ensure that your content resonates with your intended users. Remember the user experience is important: the 'I made a tool to help creators to easily share content and grow online' was criticized for typos.
  5. Focus on building a community around your content blog by actively engaging with your audience, responding to comments, and fostering discussions. Encourage user-generated content and create a sense of belonging. This will help you build a loyal following and differentiate yourself from other content blogs. Note that similar product launches were criticized when SEO was emphasized over content quality.
  6. Given that you plan to scale to multiple content blogs, develop a robust content strategy that focuses on providing high-quality, engaging, and valuable content to your target audience. Invest in SEO optimization, but prioritize creating content that is both informative and entertaining. Remember that Google is getting stricter on AI content, and users find it unethical to quote themselves in user testimonials or pretend to be a user.
  7. Continuously monitor your performance metrics, such as website traffic, engagement rates, and user feedback. Use this data to identify areas for improvement and optimize your content strategy. Also, keep an eye on what works for your competition: 'ContentNext - Supercharge your Next.js site with a powerful headless blog' received positive feedback for simplifying blogging for Next.js users and indie makers.
  8. Consider postponing this idea and exploring adjacent problems that might be more promising. For example, instead of building a content blog, you could create a tool that helps content creators manage and optimize their existing blogs. Or, find a more attractive space where there's less competition.

Questions

  1. Given the low engagement observed in similar content blog launches, how will you ensure that your content stands out and captures the attention of your target audience?
  2. Considering the criticisms of AI-generated content, what specific strategies will you employ to ensure that your content is perceived as authentic, valuable, and trustworthy by your readers?
  3. How will you differentiate your content blog from the numerous other blogs in the market, and what unique value proposition will you offer to attract and retain readers?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 24
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 3
  • Net use signal: 10.1%
    • Positive use signal: 17.2%
    • Negative use signal: 7.1%
  • Net buy signal: -4.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 1.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 5.0%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

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