Yet, therein lies the problem for new bloggers.

How, in a sea of blogs in every niche imaginable, are they supposed to stand out?

The answer is easier than you might expect, and it involves positioning yourself as “unique” in 3 very important areas of your blog.

So without further adieu, how can bloggers make sure their projects rise above the sea of competitors?

1.) Your Unique Selling Proposition

Let’s get the toughest one out of the way first!

If you want to start blogging in any relatively popular niche (which you should if you want any visitors) you are going to need “twist” for your blog topic.

The thing is, with literally millions of blogs out there, coming up with a “brand new” topic is likely going to be impossible, and force you to start blogging about something way too “niched down” and specific (is there any demand for a blog about alligator wrestlers who also parasail and dabble in stamp collecting?)

The good news is that you don’t have to come up with an entirely new topic, you just have to have a “twist” on your unique selling proposition (which you should always make known on your about page).

How?

One great way is taking a mix of things that apply to you, and use it for a single, broader niche.

For instance on Sparring Mind I talk about the general topic of content marketing.

However, I also focus on research studies (specifically in psychology) and WordPress optimization, which limits my potential audience…

But it also helps me stand out.

You need to do the same and recognize that limiting your audience to have a unique topic (at least initially) is perfectly fine.

Just look at Copyblogger, it started out purely as a copywriting site, and now it dabbles in all aspects of internet marketing.

Point is, you can always branch out later, and a unique selling proposition of a few niche topics lets people get to know what your site is all about much quicker and it helps you stand out in the crowded blogosphere.

Being known as the guy/gal who “blog about fitness from a desk jockey’s perspective” is going to get you more recognition than just being yet another fitness blogger, and it isn’t hard to do either.

2.) Your Blog’s Content Medium

This is the one that scares most bloggers the most, even though it can be a tremendous way to stand out among the bloggers in your niche.

What do I mean by your blog’s “content medium”?

Simply put, the medium in which you display/showcase your content, or how you get your information to people.

Obviously the gold standard (and one that newer bloggers always choose to pursue) is the classic text post.

Putting words on the page is “easy” in that it requires the least amount of technical skill to do, but the thing is, you could be doing so much more with your words to stand out.

Say you want to get into the personal finance niche, but you don’t really have a strong unique selling point (mentioned above) and just have excellent financial advice, how can you stand out?

Simple: take the content that you would have used in a blog post, and turn it into something else instead.

Imagine a personal finance blog that focused only on videos & podcasts, it would certainly be pretty original.

You would generate buzz just by being different, and as long as the quality was still high, you’d most likely see a faster growth rate than had you just done normal text posts, because you are standing out in the marketplace.

You could also take a less “all out” approach and just be known as the guy/gal who incorporates a certain medium into their content really well.

Pat Flynn became known for his excellent podcast in addition to his regular posts, and now he is branching out even more to video.

Have you taken a look at some of the most unusual ways of generating traffic with outside content?

Consider the power of SlideShare or how you might effectively use Scribd to get your content a farther reach.

It’s not hard to add a unique twist to your blog with different content types, and it also keeps things interesting for your subscribers.

3.) Having A Unique Blog Design

This is another thing that scares newer bloggers, mostly because they feel like having a “unique” design involves some massive amount of HTML knowledge or costs thousands of dollars.

In reality, having a unique design just means having a memorable design.

This in itself can be done on a very minimal budget, taking a typical theme and realizing what exactly your competitors are doing.

For instance, on Sparring Mind I use “graphics” images for my posts. (ie: My post images are of the graphic design variety)

I do this because I noticed that most people in the content marketing niche (such as Copyblogger) use “real” stock photos, so it was one way I could instantly stand out.

Another thing you might pay attention to is color scheme.

For instance, Derek from SocialTriggers has specifically said that he chose the color purple because he doesn’t see many marketing blogs using it.

That’s a way to instantly be recognizable with minimal effort!

We’ll use ThoughtCatalog as another example (here’s one of my favorite posts from that site).

Notice the minimal design, the super-huge font, the homepage with a distinct focus on photos.

All of those things could be easily replicated (even with a typical premium theme), but because of the sites unique content offering, and now a unique (albeit minimal) design focus, the site is instantly recognizable to most people who land on it’s posts (and has become very popular).

What I’m really trying to say it, it doesn’t take a professional designer to help you build a memorable blog (although if you are trying to build a beautiful blog, you should hire one )

You can position yourself as unique armed only with the knowledge of what makes all of your competitors look the same, and then you can do something different.

Over To You

What currently makes your blog stand out in your niche? Do you have a certain “twist” that makes your blog memorable?

What are some of your favorite unique aspects about the blogs you read?

Gregory Ciotti writes about WordPress and online marketing at Sparring Mind (make sure to check it out). He also writers a weekly column for Daily Blog Tips.

The longer I do this blogging gig, the more I realize that having a blog business plan in place is important for turning your blog into a business.

Okay, if you have a blog going and never developed a blog business plan, don’t fret, you can always develop a plan now for going forward.

Why is a blog business plan important?

Because if you don’t have a plan, you won’t have defined objectives. Without defined objectives with your blog, you’ll have a hard time hitting targets and turning your blog into a business.

But how do you develop a blog business plan?

Step 1: Define your market

Who are you writing for? You can target a broad or narrow audience. Both approaches have pros and cons.

Writing for a large audience is great because if you keep at it you can build up a high-traffic website.

Writing for a narrow audience is great because you can establish authority more quickly. Also, a narrow audience is generally more conducive for building up a loyal subscribership via e-mail and RSS feeds.

Other market considerations include:

Can you monetize your blog in your market? Yeah, I know that not all blogs strive for monetization. However, this post is about turning your blog into a business.

Is your market a fad or evergreen? I’d stay away from fad or “flash-in-the-pan” topics unless you have a tight and specific business plan to capitalize on a temporary trend.

Is your market definable? In other words, is there a particular unifying group of people in the niche or market you’ll blog about?

Step 2: Determine your overarching message

What is it you want to say? Why will your target market care to read what you have to say on the topic?

The key here is that you have a unique perspective on which to present to readers. You don’t want to re-hash existing information. Besides, that isn’t fun or rewarding.

Instead, ask yourself what it is you can bring to the table in your market or niche. Personal experience is always excellent. However, if you’re a capable researcher, you can write on the latest information, studies, etc. in your niche. This will help your blog be ground-breaking and current which will attract readers.

Step 3: How will you monetize your blog?

I don’t need to re-hash the many ways to monetize your blog. However, you must have a plan for monetizing. That said, you must have a flexible attitude about monetizing because sometimes you need to test different methods.

Step 4: Is your market or niche conducive for building a subscribership?

There aren’t many successful marketers who don’t suggest building up a subscribership in your niche. However, some niches and markets are more conducive to building a subscribership.

That said, regardless which niche you’re in there is usually a way to build a subscribership if you’re creative. One type of blog that can be more difficult in building a subscribership is a physical product review blog. The primary monetization model is affiliate marketing. This model can be extremely lucrative, but there’s no reason not to make it more lucrative by building a subscribership at the same time.

The trouble is attracting subscribers when you simply blog about and review physical products. What can you offer as an incentive? In my experience simply offering a newsletter isn’t going to do it. You need to be creative.

For example, suppose you have a blog that reviews washing machines. One way you can build a subscribership is by offering an excellent report on stain removal. Or, you can write a report on how to be more efficient with doing laundry. Given the bulk of your readers will be women, you might veer away from the “laundry” concept and offer something valuable that women will want.

Although you may have to test several incentives, in the long run, once you discover a highly converting incentive, you’ll be well on your way to building a subscribership.

Step 5: How will you get traffic?

Most people starting out rely on organic traffic from the search engines. I did, and still largely rely on search engine traffic to my review websites.

However, do you have other traffic generation methods planned? Consider article marketing, guest blogging, and even buying traffic if you have a highly converting page.

Traffic generation should be an integral part of your blog business plan because without traffic your blog won’t become a business.

3 tips for building a successful business with your blog:

In addition to developing a blog business plan, keep in mind the following 3 tips:

1. Remain flexible to some degree. You never know what will and won’t work. Have a plan, but don’t be too rigid.
2. Experiment and try new things. I’ve stumbled upon many great money-making techniques with my blogs because I tried different techniques, especially pre-selling techniques on my blog. Some experimentation failed while others worked tremendously well.
3. Once you’re generating some revenue, don’t be afraid to outsource some the tasks you don’t care doing or that aren’t your strengths.

Oh yeah, have fun with you blog. Building a business from a blog can be an absolute blast. I love doing it and when it works, it’s an extremely rewarding business.

About the Author: Peter Lawlor is a contributing author to the Definitive Guide to Affiliate Review Websites.

A very popular topic in the blogging advice circles these days is the notion that quality is more important than quantity. The old advice that you should blog daily is being cast aside with the advice that it’s far better to blog only a few times a week — or even just once a week — with a quality post rather than filling up your blog with junk just for the sake of posting something that day.

I don’t disagree with this advice, but it is certainly disingenuous. It’s a bait and switch and it’s so easy to nod along because the advice is telling us that we can do less work. Doing less work is easier, and now we’re being told that we can actually make more money or get more readers by working less! Who wouldn’t want that?

As always when you hear advice that’s too good to be true, it almost always is not true. The fact is that blogging every day is better for almost any stand alone blog.

But you have to compare apples to apples. Blogging every day with quality posts is better than blogging a few times a week with quality posts. The fault with the too good to be true advice is comparing junk posts to quality posts. If you regularly have junk or low quality posts, then you have a much bigger problem than scheduling.

Developing Reader Habits

The majority of blog readers actually go to the blog URL to read it. Strangely enough, subscribers to feeds remain a minority of visits for most blogs. Your goal as a blogger is to develop in your readers the habit of visiting your blog regularly. Every time they check back with your blog and see a new post there’s a little zip of pleasure, of positive reinforcement. The majority of them are surfing from work and looking for that little moment of distraction about a topic they’re interested in. You want reading your blog to be a pleasurable part of their daily routine, something they do without even thinking about it.

But every time they visit your blog and see no new post there’s a little zip of disappointment. The more that happens the less often they’ll check back. Some of them will find a median that matches your posting schedule (and please, if you’re not posting daily, at least have a schedule so readers know when to expect a post). But some of them won’t find that median, they’ll just quit checking back. It’s not that they get disgusted or actively make a decision to abandon your blog; they just forget about, or get distracted by something new. You just fade away.

This isn’t a big deal for certain kinds of blog: some blogs depend on SEO traffic to specific queries and provide solutions for the search phrase. These blogs are built to be successful based on traffic, but not on readers. Readers are the people who keep coming back regularly to hear what you have to say (and, perhaps, to click on ads or affiliate links).

If you post daily, you will convert more of your traffic into readers. You want the user to find your site, like the article, then poke around the starter navigation you’ve provided and realize they like a lot of your stuff. Now they’re on the hook, but so tenuously. If they come back a couple days later and there’s nothing new, odds are you’ve lost them. Providing a new interesting post on that second visit is when you really have a chance to set the hook and get them to bookmark your site, to remember it, to begin to make visiting you a part of their routine.

I started a blog in a relatively popular niche that had pretty stiff competition at the time. My two plans to stand out were to use superior SEO to attract traffic in the first place, and to convert that traffic into readers by blogging every Monday – Friday. No other blogs in the niche even posted on a schedule, and at most they post three times a week (most less). Within a year I was the dominant blog in the niche with over 20,000 visits per day. There are a lot of reasons for the success, but a regular and frequent posting schedule was a large part of it — people got used to checking the site every day from work; they spent more time with me than they did with anyone else and as a result they got to know me better than anyone else, and trust me. I honestly don’t think the site would have been so wildly successful (about four times larger than the number two site) without that regular schedule.

And a dirty little secret here: I don’t even write five quality posts a week. I figure I can get a way one with at least one filler piece each week because coming and seeing some 5-minute whipped together post of a few hundred words is still more satisfying to readers than coming and seeing no post. Also, and this is rather frustrating actually, many of those posts are among the most popular.

Different Blogging Frequencies

To some extent the frequency that you post will be determined by the kind of site that you have and your audience. I have blogs that are just additions to a main website. The main benefit of those blogs is catching some longtail search traffic and providing regular updates to the site. For those I blog just once a week — what I think of as the minimum to keep a blog breathing.

I also write for a very large news blog that receives upwards of a million hits a day. They post at least 12 time per day (half that on the weekends), and while they have a lot of great content, they also have a lot of filler and fluff in there. But here’s the thing: if they cut out that filler and fluff they would lose readers. Their audience has been trained to check at the site regularly throughout the day and those readers want that new distraction every hour, even if it’s just a 150 word trifling update. Their readers prefer to come and see a junk post rather than no new post, provided they can also expect quality posts regularly.

Here are some of the most standard blogging frequencies:

• Less than once per week: a blog that is dying, but may not yet know it
• Once a week: minimum amount to still be alive. If your blog depends on readers and you’re posting this seldom, be sure to always post on the same day.
• Three times per week: the Mon/Wed/Fri schedule is popular among web comics and is a great compromise for a blog when you just don’t have enough time or inspiration to keep up a more ideal schedule.
• Five times per week: Mon-Fri is pretty much the gold standard that you should be trying to reach with quality posts each day. This is the optimal point to convert traffic into readers and get those readers trained into making visiting your blog a part of their daily routine.
• Multiple times per day: posting more than once per day on a regular basis requires a very specific kind of blog. I know on my blogs if I post twice in the same day, one of those two posts will get about half the readers. Unless your readers are trained to expect more than one post per day it’s very easy for them to only look at the most recent post and assume they’re caught up for the day.

There are of course exceptions to any kind of guideline on posting frequency. But if you have a blog that posts less than five times per week, you will almost certainly increase both traffic and readers by increasing your posting frequency, provided you can do so without degrading your quality.

Whether the increase in traffic and readers is worth the increase in workload is something only you can answer, but don’t let someone tell you that you can blog less and increase readers. Better content means more traffic and readers. More frequent blogging, up to five times per week, also means more traffic and visitors.

Brian Wood maintains several websites and blogs, including his recently launched AwesomeDice.com. He actively maintains three daily blogs and a half dozen blogs that post less often, and averages around 30,000 people reading his posts every day.

“Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.”

While most people are focusing on his death and on what impacts it’s going to have on Apple’s future, I think we should first pause a bit and try to learn some lessons from him. After all he managed to revolutionize several industries (e.g., computers, music, mobile phones) and he made the tech company he co-founded on his garage the one with the second largest market capitalization in the world.

If you want to learn a bit more about Steve’s life and get some advice from the horse’s mouth check out the video below, which is a commencement speech he gave in 2005 to a Stanford class.

Whether you are a Mac fan or not, you can’t deny Steve Jobs was probably one of the most innovative and successful CEOs and marketers of our time. It’s a huge loss for the tech community, but his legacy will remain.

I had not considered blogging as anything more than personal journal-keeping till a few months back, a place to record one’s thoughts and feeling, and document my life as it unfolds. It was only when I chose to use my writing for something more than just personal documentation that I began to examine the principles behind successful blogging. This was when I began to realize that there are two distinct worlds in the blogosphere.

The first is the blog of the cyber-activist, a community of rebels with keyboards who hammer away at the established and non-questioning way of looking at things, usually with a pet cause that they champion, such as governmental policy reforms, or environment friendly measures that can be adopted by everyone. The other is the world that hides behind the overt activism, providing it instead with the guns and the ammunition of magical followership, sharpening the knives of technique, and researching into methods of marketing and selling causes to a sufficiently large number of readers to make your blog attractive enough to advertisers.

These two worlds coexist very harmoniously since they not only feed off each other, but also strengthen each other’s case. So you have the women’s rights activist learning from the blogger who writes about 24 ways to drive more traffic to your blog. It is a perfect case of you scratch my back, I scratch yours. The problem I faced with this realization was that I didn’t really fit into any of these two categories.

Most of my blog posts are way too long to sustain the attention of the average blog reader. (Which explains why I rarely find comments on my posts, since most of them have nexted me before they reach till there!) My blogging is a catch-all, with commentary and news that encompasses the ridiculous and the sublime, the useful and the trite. I have no niche that I write for, no one cause (beyond ethical living) that I feel very strongly about, and no tips that I can offer anyone after the introductory “be kind to yourself.” I blog because I believe in the power of writing to change lives for the better, and that is all that there is to it. I blog because I feel it is the best way I can use my gift of communication to make a difference to my life and times. Done.

Being a voracious reader, and having an open mind much of the time, I have, however, imbibed some of the mystic and unwritten laws of the blogosphere. While I wait for inspiration for my next random post, I thought it prudent to put them in my words. These are the three lessons that I have learned that have made me feel good about what I do, as well as helped me earn readers, respect and returning visitors.

1. Create

Writing is about creativity, and not keywords and SEO tricks. Those are the herbs and garnish on top of the dish. If you focus on creating a great piece of writing every time you sit to write, you will build up readership across time without fail. If instead you just focus on the garnish, you will perhaps get a large volume of crawler traffic but lose readers who come looking for substance.
Write because you want to get what you have in your mind out there in the open. Write because you want others to benefit from what you have benefited from. Write to create value in the lives of your readers. Write each post to make your reader think, to free them from suffering and to empower positive changes in their lives. Write each post as if you have been given 10 minutes of prime time on a national TV channel. Write each post as if it were the only thing of importance. Write for human beings, and not search engines and traffic fakers. Write what will make a difference to a human life, and not your blog stats and advertising revenue. If you do not have anything significant to say, don’t write, but if you do, put your heart and soul into it.

2. Organize

Clarify your thinking. Declutter your blogging life in terms of topic, tools, and technique. If there is a single recurrent theme in your writing, make it central to your blog, and hive off other posts either to another blog of your own or as guest posts on other blogs. A prominently displayed list of labels or categories sorted by most frequently used can help keep your off topic posts lower down on your readers’ radar.

A common advice for bloggers is to write short sentences and paragraphs. Decide if your target audience includes readers who cannot get past dependent clauses. Even if your preferred style is a convoluted one, go over your choice of literary devices, and get rid of the ones that clutter your writing. Look out for repetitive techniques, topics, sentence structures, words and phrases. Everyone has a finite vocabulary and it is natural for you to return to the comfort of the familiar. Exercise your reading skills, expose yourself to uplifting literature and varied styles of writing, and explore a broader range of subject matter and different genres in order to add depth to your own writing. Refrain from peppering your posts with links, but learn to throw in just a few links of real value and relevance.

3. Persist

The modern generation of Internet users have a terribly ADHD way of looking at content (that is what writing on the internet is called, content!) which is compounded by the immediacy of how the worldwide web works. Blogs that do not update frequently tend to be fall to the bottom of the pile. This does not mean you have to sit with your finger on the publish button even in your sleep. However, it is a proven fact that consistent and frequent publishing of content tends to keep your blog more alive than otherwise. (I tested this out by republishing older content, and it still worked in terms of new readers, but cost me a good chunk of my regular readers.)

There will be days when you do not have a clue what to blog about, or days when you just can’t find the motivation to break out of your blogger’s ennui. Those are the very days that you need to flex your blogging muscles and nip the writer’s block in the bud. Allow it to grow, and it will sink its roots in, and convince you that it is okay to give the writing habit a break. When faced with such a speed breaker, pull out your some-day list and write from it, or spend time reading other blogs to find motivation. Fake it to make it, take an older popular post of your own and rework it into something more lively and pertinent to the present time, or surf the news channels to find something that will lend an unusual perspective to what you have said over and over on your blog. No matter what, write regularly and update your blog frequently.

These three lessons are timeless in that they apply as much to a newbie blogger as they do to the masters of the craft. With these simple tips (and if you re-read the post, you will see that there are tips within tips within tips out there), you can be confident that what you are attempting to do will stand the test of time and prove to be of real value to your readers.

Subhorup Dasgupta is a Hyderabad based writer and educator who spends his time listening to music, drinking tea, painting, cooking, reading and watching crime shows on TV. When he is able to make time from this hectic schedule, he blogs at Subhorup.blogspot.com on random topics.