This exercise involved spending time on a successful blog in my niche so that I might observe the content, reader engagement, design, and monetization.

With genealogy, there are just so many great blogs out there that those I want to read regularly are added to my RSS FeedReader so that I can catch up with them when I have time. Sometimes this is weekly other times it is closer to monthly.

Picking one blog to scrutinise was difficult but I eventually settled on the FamilySearch blog. While not a money-making blog, I felt that it was one that is more than worthy of being a regular read.

The blog covers an inordinate amount of material taking in everything from community projects, new records, how to as well as why, photos and family history stories and, of course, everything to do with RootsTech.

New posts are uploaded every couple of days by either the team at FamilySearch or by guest bloggers and cover all levels of genealogy material for the beginners to the professional.

While the posts I looked at didn’t generate a lot of comment traffic, what comment there was showed that FamilySearch are certainly doing things right.

Tools and mediums used by the site include linking to their Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and G+ sites with options to subscribe to their blog via newsletters and RSS feeds.

But probably the best thing about the blog for me is the design – it is clean with plenty of white space and requires minimal interaction to move around.