Blogging
9 Ways To Stand Out In A Crowded Blogging Niche
There are a lot of bloggers out there besides you. Many of them are talking about the same things you are. Yet, they have the same goals.
Have you ever felt like you just weren’t unique enough to really stand out?
How can you stand out from the crowd?
I thought I would just toss out some ideas on this off the top of my head:
- Be a pattern interrupt. I go into more detail about the pattern interrupt here, but it all comes down to being different than the rest of the people who talk about what you talk about. For example, Jordan from Not A Pro Blog talks about blogging like a lot of people (including me), but he comes in as a comedian. He epitomizes a pattern interrupt for this market. What can you do that’s different?
- Offer something different. When it comes to people who offer products, what can you offer which stands out from your competitors? For example, if everybody in your market does digital goods, perhaps offering something physical will make you stand out in a good way.
- Guest Post – A Lot. Guest posting is an AWESOME way to get yourself out of the crowd and onto the radar of others in your market. The key is to produce quality posts and to submit them to blogs with some kind of perceived authority in your market.
- Have a unique design. Having a high-quality design for your blog which backs up your personal brand is important. That personal brand (when executed correctly) is what makes you stand out in any market, but your blog’s design has to back it up. People need to arrive on your blog and know what you’re about in a few seconds.
- Say Something Different. Controversy is a pattern interrupt in its own right. So, if the majority say “left”, try saying “right”. If they say “up”, try showing why “down” is better. Routinely present another side of an issue.
- Be Consistent. Nothing kills your blog’s success more than posting very rarely. You’ve got to be consistent. Since most blogs out there are not consistent, you can stand out right there just by being more consistent.
- Start that mailing list. If you have no email list, or are running a feed-only list like that offered by Feedburner, you’re really dropping the ball. And here’s the deal… most of the bloggers out there are not collecting email addresses. That’s their mistake, but you don’t have to join them. In fact, by building a list, you have a resource you can leverage in product launches and even just to drive traffic to your own blog. Major way to stand out, because you’re building community outside of just your blog. Oh yeah, and I recommend no other tool for this except Aweber. Period.
- Add Personality. Some niches are filled with people who are, well, boring as snot. How can you add personality to an otherwise unexciting subject? Can you add humor? Can you change the viewpoint?
- Network with The “Big Wigs”. Who are the people who are considered the “A-list” for your particular niche? Well, start networking with them. Twitter is an even playground, so you can start there. Don’t hound them or be needy (that’s annoying), but just be a regular networker. Reply to their tweets. Interact. Then, you can take the relationship to email and see where that takes you.
Do you have some other ideas? I’d love for you to share them below.
Do You Have Any Blogging New Years Resolutions?
We have reached 2010. And if you’ve read my free report on ProBlogging in 2010, you know I’m pretty excited about it.
Most of us make some resolutions for the new year. I always do.
Have you made any blogging new years resolutions for 2010? If so, what are they?
What are your plans? Income goals? Traffic goals?
My plans are coming together and I’m hitting the ground running in January. I’m going to be working to vastly increase my brand in the blogging space this year. I’ve got some product launches planned. I’ve got plans to expand my reach beyond this blog (more on that when the time is right). I may be working with some others on some joint projects. I’ll likely be doing more guest posting and more webinars for my subscribers.
Now, your turn. Post your comment below.
Beyond Blogging – A Review
Last night (at midnight) my friends Nathan Hangen and Mike CJ launched their new book, Beyond Blogging.
Now, I’ve seen several ebooks that are full of interviews. In fact, most of the time, the author didn’t do much of the actual writing – they just copy/pasted what the interviewee said and called it a book.
Beyond Blogging is not that kind of book. The book does have tons of input from a lot of big names in blogging:
- Chris Brogan
- Gary Vaynerchuk
- Chris Guillebeau
- David Risley (yeah, funnily enough)
- Penelope Trunk
- Chris Garrett
- Darren Rowse
- Pete Cashmore (from Mashable)
- Jonathan Fields
- Shama Kabani
- Michael Dunlop (from IncomeDiary.com)
- Steve Pavlina
- iJustine
- Brian Clark (of Copyblogger fame)
- John Chow
But, Nathan and Mike went over and above. They took the interviews and digested each of them into actionable advice. This is no copy/paste job – this book is the real deal. Each interview has a biography as well as the author’s analysis of what makes these personalities successful as bloggers.
After all the profiles and analysis, the last section of this book brings it all together into the common elements of all of them. What made these bloggers successful? What did they do right? What did they do at the beginning?
When I began really taking my blogging seriously, I read and studied others who were successful at it. It only makes sense, right? Beyond Blogging brings many years of combined blogging experience and success into one content-packed read which is sure to give any blogger several “aha moments”. In fact, the only way you won’t learn something from this book is not to read it.
On a personal basis, it is an honor to have my name on the list with these other fine bloggers. I’m glad I could help. But, more importantly, this is a fine book.
I recommend it to you wholeheartedly.
Nathan and Mike… fine work, my friends.
2 Bloggers Doing It Right
As we head into the Christmas holiday, I thought I would end off the week by featuring two more bloggers who are doing it right.
Corvida Raven
Corvida is young tech blogger who discusses social media and all things tech. She really is the consummate blogger and networker.
I believe she first crossed my radar back when I was a more frequent participator at FriendFeed. She was consistently networking with some of the other leading tech bloggers. She also used to be a writer for ReadWriteWeb, another blog I read.
Today, she writes on her own blog, SheGeeks. She also co-founded EverythingTwitter and she is also on the SocialGeeks RoundTable Podcast.
As for what she’s doing right, her content is obviously stellar. But, I would best sum her up as an awesome networker. One time, for instance, I made a comment on Twitter about Facebook Connect. It spiked her curiosity, so she DMed me and asked if she could talk to me on the phone about it. Because I knew of her, I said OK and in less than 5 minutes she and I were talking on the phone. Absolutely no back off. There are so many people who would be shy about reaching out like that.
Corvida is connected with the players in tech blogging because she realizes the power of personal networking.
You can check out SheGeeks.net and follow @corvida on Twitter.
Jordan Cooper
Jordan just recently came onto my radar. In fact, I think he is literally brand new to blogging. So, I’m sure I’m about to surprise the hell out of him by featuring him here. His blog absolutely cracks me up, though. It is called Not A Pro Blog. It is an irreverent look at blogging, social media & marketing.
Jordan is a stand-up comedian, with 15 years of experience in the field of entertainment. He isn’t new to the tactics of marketing, however. His first blog post was on December 2nd. His numbers aren’t high. But I can tell the guy gets it.
Jordan is bringing his comedy background to the world of blogging. This is something new this market hasn’t really seen, and I really think he could kick ass in all the right ways. I consider myself a new fan, Jordan. 
As a sampler, here is his video opt-in teaser for joining his email list. Hilarious!
Check out Not A Pro Blog, and you can follow @notaproblog on Twitter.
4 Bloggers Doing It Right
There are a lot of great bloggers out there and I think it is only fitting to point them out.
These first four are each people I’ve met. They are good at what they do, and each provides examples of right things to do as a blogger.
Erica Douglass
Erica blogs about success. She talks about blogging, business and self-improvement. I really appreciate her style. She provides a lot of value on her blog, but she also brings her personality to the table.
The number of things she does right is, well, high. She uses images to highlight her posts (something I really need to be doing more myself). She makes effective use of her email list to drive traffic back to the blog. She understands the power of relationship marketing. And, she creates products to sell.
She’s also a helluva nice person. She and I met in San Diego in April, where we and a small group shared some extremely overpriced sushi. 
If you want to see how it’s done, check out Erica.Biz and you can follow @ericabiz on Twitter.
Nathan Hangen
Nathan came onto my radar earlier this year when he began to comment on this blog and did a guest post. We started interacting on Twitter, then in October we met up at BlogWorld. It seems that, since then, I’ve been seeing his name all over the place! In just the last few weeks, I’ve seen him guest posting on the likes of CopyBlogger and Problogger.
Nathan focuses on lifestyle design, with a focus on how to use the Internet to design that lifestyle. I enjoy reading his unique take on things.
What is Nathan doing right? He is producing great content. He clearly realizes the power of networking and connections. He is actively working on creating products, and the guest posting he is doing is putting him on lots of radars across the Internet.
You can catch Nathan Hangen’s blog, or follow @nhangen on Twitter.
Mike Crimmins
Mike lives here in the Tampa area, so I first met him at one of my internet business mastermind meetups that I host here in Tampa. Once we met and he told me about his blog, it immediately stood out to me.
It is about coffee. I repeat, COFFEE. It is one of those topics that would just never have occurred to me to dedicate a blog to. Not only does he make it work, though… he REALLY makes it work.
I like Mike’s writing style, too. The little injections of coffee humor are fun, almost as if he knows it is funny to have a blog about coffee.
But, it does great traffic and I know he’s making money with his blog. So, he’s doing it right.
Mike is active on Twitter. His content is well written. His blog is branded very well for his topic. His list opt-in box is well located. His blog is obviously a niche blog, but I think he hits the nail on the head with his approach.
You can check out Daily Shot Of Coffee, and follow @shotofcoffee on Twitter.
Lisa Morosky
Lisa is my virtual assistant and that’s how I met her. I put out a call for a VA on Twitter and she replied (along with many others). But, Lisa stood out because she exhibited a true interest in blogging. In other words, she wasn’t just going to be executing orders I gave her… she CARES and shows it by doing it on her own.
Lisa has really exploded since I first met her. She is still a VA for Bloggers, but she is busily practicing what she knows on her own business. She is even setting up a new membership site over on SpendLessOnLife.com (not to launch until January).
Lisa is doing a lot of things right. She is posting good content. She is running a great newsletter for her mailing list (I’m on her list and I enjoy it). She is out there in the social media space, making connections constantly. And she’s straight-up witty. I think its awesome.
You can check out Lisa Morosky’s blog, and follow @lisamorosky on Twitter.
Nominations?
Do you have somebody you’d like to point out as a blogger who is doing things right?
Submit your nominations in comments.
7 Ways To Blog Your Way To A Thousand Visitors
This is a guest post by my friend (and BlogMasters student), Mike Crimmins. He is the coffee blogger. He’ll share what worked for him to get a blog about coffee up to 1,000 visitors and beyond.
I stayed up late every night, drinking lots of coffee and reading blog post after blog post on how to generate traffic. I was willing to work 24 hours a day on Daily Shot Of Coffee, but I didn’t know what to do to make people to visit it.
I tested a thousand different methods, techniques and tricks.
I tried the social bookmarking sites like Stumbleupon, but never got past ten hits a day. I discovered the hard way, that unless I found a best friend that was a power user or owned a site with a lot of traffic, I was never going to see thousands of visitors.
The blogging experts kept talking about link bait articles, blog posts that are so great that other bloggers just have to link to them, but how was I going to get them to my site to even read those articles?
After a whole lot of trial and error, lots of late nights and more pots of coffee than I can count, I found seven ways that worked and helped me blog my way to a 1,000 visitors a day.
Click Here To Continue Reading »
When Comments Begin To HURT Your Blogging Success [VIDEO]
Yesterday, I got a Backtype notification of my name being used in a comment on somebody else’s blog. What I found was a post and a comment thread which seemed to be a little resentful toward professional bloggers, specifically calling out Problogger (Darren Rowse) and John Chow.
The post is: Why I No Longer Link To The Likes Of ProBlogger And John Chow.
The gripe? They don’t reply to comments on their own blog.
Today, I thought I’d do something a bit different and just post a video. So, I tested out Youtube’s ability to record a video direct to the web. Here we go…
What Do You Think?
Do you expect replies from bloggers when you post a comment? Do you get offended when they don’t reply?
And, do you agree or disagree with me when I say that engaging in conversation has to be taken up to a point, but at a certain point it becomes a hindrance to your success?
Let me know!
How To Set Up A Poll With Wordpress [And Why]
As bloggers, we want our readers to be involved with our blog. Blogging is not a one-way interaction.
Typically, most bloggers view comments as the main sign of involvement. A comment is certainly a sign of high involvement because it takes time to write a comment (a decent one anyway).
The reality is, though, that most of your blog readers will be lurkers. They are lazy and they won’t post comments because (a) they are too lazy, and (b) they have nothing all that important to add to the conversation.
Don’t just accept this fact and move on. You need involvement devices on your blog.
Which brings me to the use of polls.
Why A Poll?
A poll is an involvement device for your blog with an insanely low barrier to entry. With two clicks, a reader can chime in. No typing necessary.
By increasing involvement via polls, you can baby-step people into comments as well. It builds up a habit of interaction with your blog and this is useful in everything you do.
Lastly, you can use a poll to gain useful feedback from your audience which you can then use to tailor future content. You could even use the information for planning products to sell on your blog.
Click Here To Continue Reading »
How To Leverage Your “Money Posts”
Every blog has some posts which are much more popular than others. They have good search rankings and they sit there as constant traffic sources for your blog.
These are your “money posts”.
To determine your “money posts”, you just need to look at your site analytics and see what your most popular pages are. For example, on PCMech, I have a tutorial on building a PC as well as a laptop review. Both of these posts each bring in more daily traffic than the homepage of PCMech. I have several other “money posts” on the site, however they don’t do as much traffic as the homepage.
Now, when you have a situation like this, you need to leverage that resource. These posts are bringing in lots of traffic. Click Here To Continue Reading »
7 Simple Tips For Blogging Faster [Without Caffeine]
We all know that content is important in blogging. Most bloggers are under pressure to produce more blog posts.
I’m not sure why, but I can generally produce a blog post pretty quickly. In most cases, I can write a typical post in 15-20 minutes. To me it is normal.
When I talk to other bloggers, I get varying levels of speed. Some bloggers are fast while others struggle to get even one post per week out the door. Couple into this the demands of normal life, and it is easy to conclude that time is the major bottleneck to your blogging success.
A Viewpoint on Time
The way I see it, time is completely arbitrary. It is in the eye of the beholder.
Have you ever seen a person who gets one task done in a day, then sit back, act tired and act like their day was full? I have. Grocery shopping seems to be the day’s goal. Time to relax after that.
On the flip side, you’ve got people who just get things done all day. They are fast. They are MACHINES. And others marvel at their productivity.
Same exact day. But, one person tackles the day in a completely different way.
Look at the hummingbird. The hummingbird flaps its wings 8-10 times per SECOND. Everywhere it goes, it goes fast. Another example: the common house fly. Wonder why you can’t ever catch the damn thing? Its concept of time is different than ours. We probably look like we’re moving like turtles comparatively.
So, the way I see it, it isn’t that we have a finite amount of time per day and it is a fixed quantity. It is our viewpoint of time which makes the difference.
It might be easier said than done, but I think its true to say this: Just change your viewpoint! You’re the one who makes time scarce for yourself!
Now, let’s put aside philosophy and talk about this more practically.
7 Tips For Faster Blogging
Here are some simple tips that I have found helped me over the years:
I'm David Risley. I've been making my living as a blogger for over a decade. Blogging is my business and how I support my family. With this blog, I'm just gettin' REAL and telling you how this business works. 
