Blogging has taken over the Web, and is arguably the most widely used platform currently available for personal and commercial social media. Everyone these days has a blog, from large corporations to grandmas, and if you want to be a real standout, you have to find ways to make your blog unique.
In other words, you have to find your niche – and once you do that, you have to become the go-to blog for that very specific subtopic you have made your own, and remain at the top despite the competition that will surely arrive. Here are three tips on finding your niche and standing out in the rising sea of blogs:
Specialize:
– The more specific you can get, the better. Instead of writing about pens, write about fountain pens designed for rich heiresses between 1955 and 1961, with stainless steel nibs dipped in 24k gold. It sounds crazy, but this is one of the most highly effective means of getting attention for your blog. The more you narrow your scope, the easier it will be for the people you really want following you to find you.
It is said that niche followers are the best followers of all, since they tend to network and promote useful sites that satisfy their urge for information on seemingly narrow topics. The more specialized your blog, the more promotional work your readers will do for you without you even having to ask.
Be Prolific:
– Find fresh things to write about your specific topic, and make interesting posts on a regular basis to bring web traffic to your blog. Blogs that aren’t updated regularly are overlooked routinely, so keep the content fresh and alive. Publish often, and your foot traffic is sure to pick up. Once you fall off the radar in your niche, it can be difficult to regain lost ground, so don’t let it happen in the first place.
Reach Out for Content:
– If you can’t provide all of the needed content on your own, solicit for guest posters who will often supply quality content in exchange for nothing more than a few link backs to their blogs or sites. Still others will often write in exchange for some special item related to the topic of the niche blog; for instance, if the blog is about the most popular flash drives worn as necklaces in the early 2000s, you might offer to give away a Memorex 50 MB antique in exchange for the story.
These three tips will help you maintain focus and increase traffic and loyal followers to your blog. No one said it would be easy, but standing out in a niche market is still possible if you strive for success. Good luck finding your niche!
This is a guest post by Melonie, who enjoys writing about blogging and technology. If you want to guest post check out the guidelines here.
Image Credit: Jeremy Brooks.
11 comments