After my kick ass post, I thought I would give you all some new things to ponder. Thank you for all the great compliments and links!
Getting your blog to stand out in the crowd is difficult, but possible to accomplish. You will need to be dedicated to your blog in order for it to get noticed by any major bloggers, as they won’t just link to people who are half assing their jobs.
Give your blog a flashy design
Pick a design that flashes to the audience, that will grab their eyes. DO NOT pick something terribly dark or plain as they will just pass up your blog like an amateur. Try different designs, the first design you pick will more than likely NOT be your finally choice. Once you do have a blog design you like, and it is usable, keep it for at least three months. You don’t want constant change as that will scare readers off.
Do not be afraid to change things around in a theme you like. If you see a theme that is very close to what you want you can always look up the coding over at the WordPress Codex to change whatever you might need. Go outside of your comfort zone if you are new to blogging and take a proactive approach to playing in code, it might be necessary to know some minimal coding if your blog goes down due to a coding issue.
Get a tagline, a GREAT tagline
Pick a tagline that screams you. Something funny or informative, however it has to bring a punch. Don’t underestimate the power of a tagline as it can give your readers a great idea of the general gist of your blog. Also, don’t leave you tagline blank. I know you can be more creative than that!
DO NOT SKIMP ON THE CONTENT!!!
The biggest problem I see on blogs today is that people do not take the time to produce their own content and if they do they don’t do it well enough. You alone are not Tech Crunch, you do not have the time nor the resources to post 25 articles with great English and amazing presentation. However, you alone can create at least one post per day that could rival any lead blog.
Write about subjects that relate to your site. Writing about cars on a cooking blog makes you look like nothing more than a moron. You have a quality niche in cooking and more than likely you know what you are talking about. However, if you start posting about cars your readers are going to feel out of place and alienated.
Utilize the spell checking function. If you have FireFox, which is an essential for any blogger because of the use of tabs, you can just right click and hit the spell check function on. This will make sure your posts are at least spelled correctly. Try to read your post at least once to check for any spelling or grammar errors that the spell checker did not catch.
Use Images, Videos, Audio. Using media allows you to bring a new dimension to what you are talking about, don’t forget that we are in Web 2.0, not Web I do not know! Make sure all your links are valid to your media however, as the picture is no good without the correct coding to display it. If you have a digital camera try producing some of your own pictures and videos. You may be surprised at what you can accomplish.