Be An Authority On Something

Blogging can be tricky. What I mean is you can probably do a lot of things right but you have to stop and ask yourself what it is that separates you from the rest of the bloggers in your niche. I think you can do the same stuff, write about the same topics, and be just as good as all the other blogs in your niche, but if you really want to excel you have to provide your readers with something that they just can’t find any where else. So how do you determine what that something is?

1) Strengths - In order to determine what you can provide your readers with that is unique, you must look inward at your own strengths. Are you good at writing? Maybe you aren’t so good at writing but you are an excellent researcher. You have this ability to dig up information quickly and effectively. Or maybe you have a strong personality. It only makes sense to offer up one of your strengths. To determine your strengths you have to be honest with yourself. It is crucial if you want to assess things properly. You don’t want to claim you know everything about a certain subject and really not.

Sometimes if you have a new love for something, passion can carry you a long way but you have to provide something to your readers that goes well beyond how you feel about a subject. An example would be… I love music but I can’t sing worth a darn. I might be able to tell you everything there is to know about music and provide daily news about the music industry but when it comes to singing in a podcast it would drive readers away all across the continent. So be honest with yourself, find your strengths, and blog it.

2) Opportunities - Another way to help determine what you can offer your readers that is different from all the other blogs in your niche is to constantly look for opportunities. If your niche is saturated, and you offer the exact same thing that other blogs offer, even if it is your #1 strength, you are not really offering a whole lot different. Not that you can’t stick to your #1 strength, but this is when you have to look for opportunities to help find that cutting edge.

Be first. An example of an opportunity is to be first at something. You have to constantly scan what’s happening out there in your niche and be on top of it. Be the first to post on late breaking news. Back in June was Father’s Day. Next year be the first to provide a top 10 best father’s day gift ideas list. Email other bloggers with your list. So being the first is a great way to take advantage of opportunities.

Be creative. Another example of taking advantage of opportunities is to create something. How about a contest with a prize? Keep your contest relevant to the subject of your blog and provide a small prize. People love getting prizes but most importantly people love getting recognition. This will keep your readers interested. And hopefully others will link to your contest. But don’t be shy. Got something going on and you have faith in it… why not email other bloggers and let them know.

Be personable. I email other bloggers all the time. Some never reply to me and think I’m nutso and others really warm up to me. You have to take some risks. If not, you will probably have the same 3 readers on your blog for the rest of your blogging career. But be personable. Try not to harass other bloggers with daily news tips. This can get irritating and may cause an adverse affect. But make friends in your niche, and spend time in your emails. Like I have mentioned before blogging is more than just writing. There are many other parts to it.

Be reliable. This is definitely an opportunity that is probably something that you should have a strength in. No matter what you blog about, and no matter what your strengths are, you have to come across to your readers as reliable. So what does that mean exactly? It probably comes in different forms. Posting every day for 2 weeks and then not posting for 2 weeks is not a good habit to get into if you want to build reliability with your readers. There are ways to get around this if you are on vacation, on the road, or lost on Mount Hood.

The issue at hand is you now have a personal relationship with your readers. If every day when your spouse or significant other walks through the door in the evenings after work and sees you there preparing dinner or if you expect your significant other to be home every evening after work because they have always been there and then one day find them not there. What then? 5 or 6 days go by and they have yet to show up. You can’t trust them in the future to be there. Once they come back for a while you begin to wonder each day when you come home if they will be there. Your significant other is not reliable.

That is a bit extreme, but I got my point across. Blogging is the same way but with not such a personal impact. It may take a week before readers begin to get bored and wonder. But the key is consistency. Consistency builds reliability. For instance if you consistently post to your blog once per week and have done that for 3 years then you are reliable. But if you blogged once per day for a year and then started posting once per week and then once per day when you feel good, and then when you get tired you take a 2 week break, your readers will begin to feel the unreliability. So, as an opportunity… be reliable.

Be partisan. I can’t stand reading blogs when it is obvious the author is not really being honest. Everyone has a bias, and everyone needs to not be afraid of it. I don’t mean you have to be rude and nasty, but let’s have a backbone. You can’t please everyone with your opinions but you need to actually appeal to a certain group. If you are to be an authority on something, and be different from all the other bloggers, you have to take a side somewhere. Too many bloggers sit in limbo and don’t want to offend people. I don’t want to offend people either but I still need to stick up for what I believe to be true. It is our right as citizens to stand up for what we believe in and by doing this on a blog we are exercising our freedoms. Don’t be afraid to say global warming is for the deceived, or eating meat is disgusting. Either side you are on, make that distinction. All successful blogs have a voice, have an opinion, and stand by it.

Be passionate. There are a lot of people who are passionate and it may not be your #1 strength, but it will be the passion that will get you through. When you write, readers should be able to see the passion you have for the subject.

3) Competition - Another important thing to look at when you have to separate yourself from other bloggers is your competition. Some niches are completely saturated and finding that cutting edge is nearly impossible. Other niches have a lot of room for growth. Look at the hunting blogosphere. The fishing niche still has room to grow but there are a lot more fishing blogs than hunting. Hunting seems to be real slow. I just talked to an old time buddy of mine who books hunts for other people who are looking for a reliable guide service. I told him he needs to really think about setting up a blog for his business. He came back at me and said he was embarrassed to ask but he wasn’t really sure he knew what a blog was. And I see a lot of this in the hunting industry. Blogging is good for the hunting industry and we are always telling others that they are misinformed about the sport. Blogging is a great and inexpensive way to get the word out about hunting. It is a new way to tap into the younger kids and show them how awesome the sport is by reaching them online through blogs.

So make sure you know your competition and try to find a way by using your strengths and your opportunities out there to become different than all the other blogs. You should ask yourself, “why would someone want to read my blog?” You want readers to say the reason why they read your blog is because, “There is no other blog out there like it.”

Simple as that. So you need to determine why and how your blog is the only one of its kind.