How to Differentiate Your Blog and Stand Out in The Crowd

There are a lot of blogs. WordPress, the most popular blog hosting service in the world, publishes an average 24 posts every second. That adds up to 1,481 blog posts per minute, 88,888 an hour and slightly over 2.13 million per day.

You could argue that while it’s never been easier to become a blogger, ‘making it’ is actually harder than ever. The challenge is getting your blog noticed amongst the huge volume of content that’s published online every day. Luckily, it’s one test that’s not as hard to pass as you might think.

The truth is that most authors don’t put as much effort as they need into making their content distinct. For the savvy blogger, this provides an opportunity to stand out from the crowd by doing something just a little bit different from the norm.

Finding a niche

Finding a blog topic is easy. But finding a blog topic that hasn’t been written and then rewritten about a million times over is a totally different story. Popular blogging niches include:

• Health and Fitness
• Cooking
• Sports
• Interior design
• Parenting
• Fashion

The trouble with broad niches like those listed above is that they’re usually waaay too competitive for newcomers. That’s why the most successful bloggers tend to specialise within targeted niches.

Let’s say you want to blog about parenting: writing generally about the topic will mean competing against a lot of established names and success will be a lot harder to find.

Instead, you could try focussing on an area of parenting that not many people are currently blogging about like, say, healthy lunch box ideas. Alternatively, you might want to take a stab at covering kids fashion, eco-friendly living with children or educational toys.

Take Therese at ERF Mission, for example. She’s a passionate parenting blogger who successfully found her niche writing about child car seat safety. In the process, becoming an accredited expert while earning a loyal and engaged audience along the way.

Develop a unique writing style

Every personality is unique. This makes writing in your own voice and the way you speak as the easiest way to develop an individual style.

If you’re the face of your blog, connect with your readers by always writing in the first person. If you’re naturally funny, don’t be afraid to sprinkle a little humour throughout your posts. And if you’re controversial, well, you get the picture.

If the tone of voice you write in is drastically different to the one you speak in, there’s more chance you will come across as ingenuine and uninterested. When finding your feet, try reading what you write out loud. If what you’ve typed doesn’t sound like something you’d say, just rewrite it until it does.

If that sounds simple, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be putting in the practice to ensure you come across as the best version of you as possible when writing. To develop a unique style, here are three things you can do to help:

Read: Borrowing from successful writers will allow you to pick up handy techniques and tricks.

Study: Copywriting blogs, videos and courses will help you hone your talent.

Practice: Writing every day is the only way to smooth your rough edges and perfect your craft.

If you’re looking for inspiration, Thug Kitchen is an excellent example of a blog that strives to write in a unique voice by being brave, different and true to themselves.

Make it pretty

Did you know that blog posts with images get twice as many shares as those that don’t? At the same time as making your blog look pretty, high quality images increase engagement. Double-win!

From striking feature images to gorgeous photographs that break up the copy, packing your blog post with attention-grabbing images will help you beautify your blog.

Faded Spring is a great example of a blogger that gives her posts a unique flavour by taking photos in front of eye-catching graffiti. But if you’re not in the position to take your own photos, sites like Pixabay and Unsplash allow you to download lots of high quality images with Creative Commons licenses.

 

So now you know how to make your blog stand out in the crowd. For even more tips on how to write an engaging blog post, check out more articles in the subject here.

Do you have any tips about making your blog unique? We’d love to hear about them in the comments below.