100 Ways to Make Your Blog Stand Out from the Crowd

According to NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company, they have tracked over 181 million blogs around the world by the end of 2011. Furthermore, a majority of bloggers in the blogosphere have been blogging for more than 4 years. Others are even for more than 6 years. Thus, if you are an aspiring blogger, who wants to succeed in the blogging industry, you’ve got to stand out from the crowd, as well as vie in this tough competition. Bloggers compete in many ways. There are many factors that determine the success of a certain blog, such as high rankings, popularity, number of loyal visitors, great testimonials, awards, recognitions, and profit earned. Now, how do you make your blog rise to the top? The following are 100 ways to ensure that your blog will stand out from the crowd.


Build your foundation as a blogger

1. Have a vision and mission. Determine your purpose for blogging.

2. Make a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) plan.

3. Find your passion and expertise.

4. Analyze the crowd. Tour the blogosphere and study your blogging competition

5. Have personal development. Learn discipline, patience, diligence, confidence. You will need them always as a blogger.

6. Read blogs from expert bloggers, such as Problogger,  CopyBlogger, and DailyBlogtips.

7. Develop your writing skills. Read TheWritePractice, GoinsWriter, TheCreativePenn, and other blogs that can teach you how to make your writing and blogging style better.

8. Join bloggers’ forums, groups (Facebook groups) and other bloggers’ community to ask, share, and learn useful blogging tips and techniques.

9. Learn more. Read more books, articles, the news, and other resources that can widen your knowledge. Remember that top bloggers are wide readers.

10. Be fit and healthy. Blogging can be a stressful work. Hence, you’ve got to prepare your mind and body to blog competitively.


Invest more

11. Register your own domain name. Make it captivating, memorable and honorable. A dotcom domain only costs around $10 per year.

12. Get a premium blog design or hire a web designer who can tweak your blog to look better and more professional. If you’re using WordPress, EleghantThemes offers 1 year access for all their premium WordPress themes for only $39.

13. If you are hosting your blog on your own, make sure to have a reliable web hosting service provider.

14. Have a great logo for your blog. If you don’t know graphic designing, then ask some help from someone who can do that for you.

15. Get a better and faster ISP (Internet Service Provider). You need it for more efficient blogging, publishing, and researching on the Internet.

16. If necessary, upgrade your computer’s processor for faster computing. A very slow processor can give you stress and headache while blogging.

17. Buy a camera. You’ll need it for uploading original photos and for blogging documentation. You don’t need to buy an expensive one, especially if you know how to enhance images through Photoshop.

18. Invest more time on reading eBooks and watching videos about pro-blogging.

19. Attend and participate in blogging summit and events.

20. Invest more time and focus on blogging. Minimize spending time on unproductive activities, like too much lurking on Facebook and playing web games.

Be unique

21. Publish original stories and be creative.

22. Write opinionated blog posts.

23. Develop a unique writing style and give your blog a distinctive personality.

24. Use original photos on your blog posts.

25. Customize your blog’s design. Don’t just buy premium theme, but customize it to look unique and fit for your brand.

26. Check other blogs to make sure you will be blogging contents that have not been blogged before.

27. Present your “about page” more interestingly and tell the unique stories about the person or the people behind your blog.

28. Stick to your niche. Don’t write topics just because they are hot, unless you’re primarily blogging about news and trends.

29. If you’re blogging about news and trends, always be the first to blog the breaking news.

30. Treat your visitors and audience special.


Be the best

31. Spy on your competitors to ensure that you will be providing contents that are better than what they provide.

32. Use relevant images, infographics, videos and other media to supplement your blog posts.

33. Be generous. Share your knowledge and secret-to-success stories on your blog posts.

34. Write evergreen or timeless blog posts or those that always remain useful to readers all the time.

35. Be a minimalist. Stop writing nonsensical words and phrases just to make your blog posts longer. Make sure to remove clutters on your writings.

36. Learn from your mistakes and write better blog posts than before.

37. Make your blog tidy. Remove excessive ads.

38. Don’t ignore quantity. Blog more often. Top blogs usually have more blog posts than the rest.

39. However, don’t sacrifice quality over quantity. Take time to ensure the quality, value and rich information on your blog posts.

40. Wow your readers. Write blog posts beyond their expectations.


Learn marketing

41. Learn search engine optimization (SEO). Read top SEO sites like, SEOmoz, Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Land.

42. Learn social media marketing (SMM). Read top social media blogs, such as Mashable, Social Media Examiner and Social Media Today.

43. Implement your social media marketing strategies. Build your blog’s Facebook page, Twitter profile, Google+ circle, and other social media profiles.

43. Read marketing blogs from marketing experts, like Seth Godin, Chris Brogan and Brian Solis.

44. Research your market and learn how to target specific audience.

45. Study human behavior, otherwise known as psychology. The more you read people’s minds, the better you will become a marketer.

46. Promote your blog offline. Ask support from your family, relatives, close friends, and even from your co-workers.

47. Reward your blog’s visitors. Run blog contests.

48. Create attractive titles and headlines for your blog posts.

49. Optimize your blog’s accessibility. Create a sitemap, make it fast loading, and navigational friendly.

50. Learn how to create viral contents.


Connect and socialize

51. Install social media plugins, widgets or buttons to encourage your visitors to share your content to the social media.

52. Build your brand on your social media network. Include your blog on your profiles and drive your friends and followers to your blog.

53. Share valuable Facebook status updates, tweets, and other stuff on your social media network.

54. Try using other social networking sites, like Linkedin, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit.

55. Create interesting videos and upload it on Youtube, Vimeo and other video sharing sites.

56. Create useful documents and share it on Scribd and Docstoc.

67. Create useful and educational slideshows and share it on Slideshare.

58. Take interesting photos and share them on your Flickr, Instagram and Pinterest account.

59. Don’t spam; have social media etiquette.

60. Be natural. Socialize like a human, not like a software or robot.


Create relationship

61. Be active on Facebook groups and other blogging community. Help other bloggers.

62. Meet your loyal followers personally if possible.

63. Always mention and thank your blog’s visitors and supporters whenever you receive recognition or achieve any blogging success.

64. Reply and answer comments on your blog. Reply and answer emails and private messages on your Facebook, Twitter, and other social media profiles.

65. Cooperate with other bloggers, as well as with your competitors to make the blogosphere a better place for everyone.

66. Show that you care. Express your love.

67. Respect people. Respect their rights and privileges.

68. Moderate your blog. Protect your good visitors from spammers.

69. Don’t show favoritism. Treat your visitors and followers equally.

70. Always greet your visitors or commenters even with just a simple Hi, Hello or Good day.


Inspire people

71. Make your blog posts inspiring. Put wisdom and powerful words on them, and not only flowery phrases.

72. Be positive.

73. Enjoy blogging.

74. Have a cause. It can be the protection of our environment, the fight for poverty, and other great cause you want to promote using your blog.

75. Teach people online and offline. Teach them whether they are your blog’s supporters or not.

76. Be a leader. Start from leading yourself to the right path.

77. Be a world-class blogger. Aim and strive for world-class quality and excellence. Spy the world’s top bloggers to get an idea.

78. Gather good testimonials. Create a testimonial page. It improves your credibility and reliability.

79. Make yourself an example of a successful blogger. Show your proof to tell the world that you walk the blogging talk.

80. Don’t just express yourself without deep considerations. Listen to what people’s minds and hearts are saying. Provide answers to their questions and solutions to their problems.


Innovate

81. Always upgrade your blogging software / platform, theme and plugins. Don’t forget to backup your files for security.

82. Bring your blog to mobile audience. Consider developing mobile apps for your blog.

83. Consider outsourcing other blogging tasks (i.e., SEO, SMM, research, and writing) so that you can focus on your core blogging activities.

84. Conform to Google’s new search engine algorithm updates (e.g, the Panda update).

85. Always update your blogging, writing and Internet marketing knowledge.

86. Try other monetization schemes, aside from Adsense. Learn affiliate marketing and direct advertising. Don’t let your blog become a losing business and halt its operation. Just make sure you don’t overdo making money online and sacrifice the quality of your blog.

87. Predict people’s needs in the future. Then provide them now through your blog posts.

88. Do that little extra. Always give extra contents that are useful to your audience.

89. Go outside of your comfort zone.

90. Transform yourself as a better blogger, with a better blog than before. Don’t forget to also transform your audience lives into better lives.


Be consistent

91. Stand and fight for your righteous principles. If you don’t have a righteous principle, create one now.

92. Protect your core values.

93. Be honest and deliver what you promise. Learn how to say no if you think you cannot deliver something.

94. Stick to your plan. Don’t just immediately grab opportunities, unless you can prove that they will have better results.

95. Create momentum. Focus on one blog until you become a successful blogger. After you achieve success, you can create other blogs to duplicate your success.

96. Think for the long-term benefits.

97. Maintain your reputation and integrity.

98. Practice not only to become perfect, but also to become enduring and long lasting.

99. Don’t just be patient, but also be persistent.

100. Be faithful.

 

So… are you ready to make your blog stand out from the crowd? If you have any other blogging tips to share with us, feel free to make a comment below. Cheers to our blogging success!