I’ve been reading up on a lot of Warren Buffett lately. His business acumen and common sense is legendary as proven by his track record. If you’re interested in investing, I suggest going to your local library or bookstore and picking up some books on Buffett. Another source of lots of Buffett wisdom is the Berkshire annual reports.

This is Buffett giving advice about being successful in life…

To protect your business, you’ve gotta build a castle and a big moat around it. Your business is your castle. As a money-making blogger, your blog is your business. You have to build a moat around your blog. Now, what does that mean, you ask?

In business, the moat is the barrier to entry to the business. If your business model and product is easily replicable and there’s not much to distinguish you from your competitor, then you’ve got a small moat. As a blogger, what is your competitive edge?

Your network is your moat. You may have built relationships with other bloggers in your niche. That’s a competitive advantage. For example, a mention on an A-list blog could get your traffic shooting up for a few days.

The links to your blog is your moat. If you have spent time marketing your blog and building your brand, then you’ll get links back to your blog which help you get better search engine rankings. That’s a barrier to entry for new bloggers.

Your web stats are your moat. By mining your data, you’ll understand more about your visitors and where they come from. You’ll know the return on your advertising and marketing efforts. You’ll know which keywords you are ranked for that are bringing most of the traffic. With all that data, you can tailor your blog to target the people you want to reach.

Your domain age and search rankings are your moats. Blogs on older domains that have a history of constant posting tend to get lots of attention from search engine spiders. As a result, it’s a lot easier to rank for lots of different long tail phrases that, in aggregate, can bring you significant traffic. I’ve seen with this blog that a lot of phrases I use in the title of the post will come up on the first page of the search engine results after a few days.

If you’re thinking of starting a blog, get your own domain name. Forget about saving a few dollars with free hosting on Blogger or Wordpress. You want to own your domain and build a recognizable brand.

These are just a few examples of how you can build a competitive advantage even in the fast-moving world of blogging.

So go ahead and widen your moat. Every day.

And while you’re at it, throw some sharks and alligators in there as well.

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