SWOT Analysis-What It Is And Why You Need To Do One
Performing a SWOT Analysis is one of the first steps in your roadmap to success. Whether you are running a small business or a blog understanding how to do a SWOT and what it means is an important factor to success.
What is a SWOT Analysis?
SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. It’s important to understand your business and/or blog’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. In being able to identify these and analyze them you will enable yourself to grow.
“An honest SWOT analysis helps a retailer identify what it’s doing well, where it can improve, and where it fits in the competitive landscape.“-bigcommerce.com
Strengths and Weaknesses
Analyzing your strengths and weaknesses will allow you to understand your core market strengths and identify your weaknesses so that you can find what can be approved upon. These two features are looking at the business from within.
Opportunities and Threats
These features- Opportunities and Threats are analyzing things external to your business. You’ll consider things like trends, technology changes, new opportunities that are coming up. When looking at “threats” you will consider an obstacle that you might face or more established competitors for example.
Rules of Performing a SWOT Analysis
- Be Realistic about your strengths and weaknesses
- Your SWOT will help show where you are today and where you could be in the future.
- Be as specific as you can
- View your SWOT in relation to your competition, determining if you are better or worse in those areas.
- Keep it simple and short, you don’t want to over analyze
Your SWOT
Answer the questions below to help you complete your SWOT Analysis for your site.
Strengths: List 3-4 major internal strengths of your current content marketing efforts. What’s been working well so far?.
What advantages do you have? (For Ex. expertise in a particular topic)
What do you do better than anyone else?
What unique resource do you have that you can draw upon that others can’t?
Weaknesses- List 3-4 strategic internal weaknesses of your current content marketing efforts.
What factors that are within your control detract from you being able to obtain or maintain a competitive edge?
What areas need improvements? Is there a lack of focus in any area?
What does your business lack? (Resources, skills, technology)
Opportunities– List 3-4 external opportunities that exist for anyone in your same market. This might include paid social distribution or similar.
What opportunities exist that you can benefit from?
Has there been any recent market growth or changes to create opportunity?
Are there paid distribution opportunities?
Threats- List 3-4 external threats that exist for anyone in your market. This may be something like competitors that have more resources or creating content that is easily replicated.
Examples: Supply cost increase, new technology, a competitor with lower rates, ect.
Want More Examples of a SWOT?
Another fantastic article to check out for more information on completing a SWOT is from Strategic Management Insight- “SWOT Analysis- Do It Properly!“
What’s Next? After You Complete Your SWOT…
Once you’ve completed your SWOT analysis, you can create an action plan based on your strengths and weaknesses that you’ve identified in your current efforts.
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