Michael PeggsThere are millions of blogs out there pumping out tens of millions of posts every week.
How do you stand out in such a crowded field?
Simple: by creating incredible content and following it up with extraordinary content and social media marketing.
Fortunately, when it comes to blogging, you have plenty of examples of talented bloggers to follow. We’ll take a look at four such successful bloggers, and how they’ve attracted massive audiences through some unusual blogging tactics:.
1. Curate the best content on a topic – Brainpickings.org
Maria Popova runs the incredibly popular BrainPickings blog. Besides attracting an audeince in the millions, she has also been featured in a NYT story.
BrainPickings works because of two reasons:
- It curates the best content on any given topic.
- It presents the content in the best possible manner.
Whether it’s a 12th century Jewish philosopher or Kafka on love and patience, BrainPickings goes in-depth into every idea it tackles. It has a very strong literary bent, but you’ll find that it curates everything from illustrations to artwork that corroborates the core idea.
All this makes for a delightful and inspirational read – and helps it stand out from the crowd.
The lesson: Curating top notch resources can be more powerful than coming up with original content.
2. Post infrequently, but make every post count – Backlinko.com
In a field as crowded as SEO blogging, Brian Dean of Backlinko has managed to draw an audience of 100,000 by writing just one blog post a month.
The secret to Backlinko’s success? Fresh ideas and ridiculously in-depth content. As is fitting for a marketer who came up with the ‘Skyscraper Technique’, every single post on Backlinko is often the definitive post on its topic.
The lesson: focus on quality, not quantity. How often you post matters a lot less than what you post.
3. Leverage your to create a multi-author blog – BoostBlogTraffic.com
Jon Morrow’s BoostBlogTraffic is one of the best resources for writers and bloggers online. However, if you take a close look at the blog, you’ll be surprised to see how seldom Jon actually writes. Instead, most of his content is created by writers for free who just want to leverage the BoostBlogTraffic brand.
Jon is able to do this because he has built up an enviable network of writers and editors who want to work with him. Instead of creating content himself, he leverages this network and the BoostBlogTraffic.com authority to attract some of the best writers online.
The lesson: build up a platform, then leverage your network to create fresh content with the help of guest bloggers.
4. Offer critical insights on industry trends – Daringfireball.net
John Gruber writes DaringFireball, one of the most popular tech blogs around with a strong Apple flavor. That Gruber has managed to create such a valuable blog without any external help is all the more remarkable.
The DaringFireball model is built on Gruber offering his own insights on tech industry trends. Most of these concern Apple, but there’s plenty of insight on the broader tech industry as well. Gruber usually picks up a news story and breaks it down for his readers. This way, he’s managed to turn DaringFireball into the most insightful source of tech news and knowledge for his readers.
The lesson: Original content is nice, but insight is far more valuable. Curate the best sources on a topic then offer your insight on it to win big.
Let’s sum it up
Rather than reinventing the wheel from scratch, you’ll save yourself a lot of pain (and marketing dollars) by following what successful writers and bloggers already do. For starters, follow the four unusual strategies outlined above to kickstart your blogging success.
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