3 Ways of Differentiating Your Blog
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Chelm Justice for Blogging
Eons ago, there was a small town named Chelm somewhere in Europe. To bring order in the city, the people had elected an impartial judge. One day, filled with rage, the town cobbler killed one of his customers.
The cobbler was bought up in front of the judge who sentenced him to die by hanging. This was really bad news for the town. One townsman gained some courage to stand up and speak: “If Your Honor pleases, you have sentenced to death the town cobbler! He’s the only one we’ve got. If you hang him who will mend our shoes?”
a_?Who! Who?a_? cried all the other townsmen in Chelm together.
The judge thought for a while, nodded in agreement and reconsidered his verdict. a_?Good people of Chelm,a_? he said, a_?What you say is true. Since we have only one cobbler it would be a great wrong against the community to let him die. As there are two roofers in the town, let one of them be hanged instead!a_?
Action Summary:
- You have to differentiate your blog from other blogs. If you fail to do that, the public will never let your blog become famous. They will never fight for you. And when the time comes to remove clutter from their blog reading lists, you will be the first one to go. So focus on differentiating your blog.
Painless Differentiation
It doesn’t take a lot to differentiate your blog from the crowd. A little effort can take you a long way. Dennis Rodman differentiated himself from other basketball players by making just one simple change.
For years, Dennis Rodman was a first class basketball player putting up impressive rebounding numbers on the scorecard. But he didn’t receive much publicity and hardly any endorsement contracts. That all changed when he coloured his hair red. By being bold and different, he instantly stood out from the rest of his mates. And made a fortune for himself endorsing products.
Dennis Rodman: Before & After. Black boring hair hid him in the pack. Red exciting hair made him rich and famous!
3 Ways of Differentiating Your Blog
In an effort to prevent this post turning into a book, I’ll keep the bullet points brief. You should focus on just 3 things to differentiate your blog.
1. Blog Design
Your blog design creates your first impression amongst your readers. So if you are really serious about blogging, you shouldn’t go for a ready made theme that 100s of other bloggers are using. But instead, create or hire some one to create your own blog theme.
Step 1: Audit your competitor’s blog. See how their blog theme looks like.
Step 2: Then create a blog theme that looks different than theirs. You can come up with a unique theme by simply focusing on three main elements of your blog:
- Colours
- Layout
- Header/Logo
Eg: North X East blog on blogging has one of the best blog designs I’ve ever seen!
2. Content Chutzpah
Your blog content is divided in two parts. 1: Writing. 2: Supportive audio-visuals and images.
Differentiating your blog simply based on your writing is hard work. But you can do it by finding your own unique voice. Two tips to find your own voice is:
i. Exaggerate. You can only find your voice after you have experienced the extremes. Write a post with lots of adjectives. Write a post with lots of big words. Write a post with very unusual words in it. Try to write a poem. By experiencing these extremes, you will come to know what you are most comfortable with. And will create your own unique writing style. (Don’t publish your exaggerated posts if you don’t feel like it.)
ii. Read and emulate. I used to read the onion and then try to write an article in their style. I used to read Monday Morning Memo’s and immediately write my own blurb using their writing style. By emulating various masters, you’ll find your own voice.
Eg: Bloggrrl has a very unique voice of her own.
It is very hard to differentiate your blog simply based on your writing. But you can easily make use of snazzy audio-visual and images to differentiate your blog.
Eg: Gaping Void differentiated himself because of his cartoon cards
Eg: Kathy Sierra differentiated her blog by making cool use of pictures and graphs
3. Unique Selling Proposition (USP) Of Your Blog
What does your blog offer that no other blog offers?
Pizzas are made and sold since at least a few dozen decades. But Dominos could still sneak upon the market and take a huge pie out of it for themselves because they came up with a USP that no one else did. They offered something that no one else before them had offered: quick delivery.
How can you build up on your blog topic and offer something that no one else offers?
Eg: Chris Garrett has coined a new term “Authority Blogger” and created a USP for himself.
Make Your Blog Famous
In the comments section of this post, write down how you differentiate your blog. What do you do that makes you stand out? It could be based on the 3 differentiation points in the post above. Or it could be some other element that you focus on.
I’ll make a follow up post where I will feature your blog and how it differentiates itself!
If you liked this post, buy me a beer. (Suggested: $3 a beer or $7.5 for a pitcher)Spread the word:
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I use images that you wouldn’t expect and add a caption to show how it’s related. It adds interest visually, adds a bit of humor, and keeps people reading my blog.
Posted 03 Aug 2007 #
You mentioned NorthXEast having one of the best designs you have seen. I have visited that website frequently and there is only some things I do appreciate about that design.
It could be the browser I am using but it looks terrible on the old IE 6.0 but I doubt it. However on a different computer with IE 7.0, it looks like it was the way it was supposed to be designed so it does look better. I don’t understand why the difference but it brings up a question,
What exactly qualifys a blog as the best blog design you have ever seen?
I am curious because I am currently designing my new theme which will take some time but it is being differentated from other blogs as newer ones are popping up all the time now. The Internet makes it hard to be original.
Posted 04 Aug 2007 #
Mark: Thanks for asking. Haven’t cross checked NorthXEast in all the browsers. But it looks fabulous in FireFox. It has a very unusual look. Yet it is easy on the eyes and very well designed from usability point of view.
Lets break it down in the essential designing elements.
1. Colour. Very unusual colours. Contrast with black-green on the top and white-light grey in the body. The third colour - orange - adds flavour to it. Plus, they make excellent use of gradients. It is very hard to use gradients on a webpage. But NorthXEast has done it perfectly. And it adds a lot more depth to their theme.
2. Logo. Its simple yet elegant. Just 3 colours. Can be used as a symbol anywhere and it marks NorthXEast out perfectly. Look closely at the shadows on the logo - how much depth it has.
3. Layout. This is where NorthXEast marks itself out. Its layout is something I’ve never seen before. But its something that works well. Very easy on the eyes. Has the ability to win my attention and keep it. Their main page works as a “Table of Contents.” It has some social proof elements like testimonial and the number of subscribers. The blog post page just gives me one thing to do: read the post. Doesn’t distract me with bells and whistles.
4. Fonts. Are easy to read. Yet contrasting enough that it differentiates the title and the body well.
5. Un-clutter. There is no un-needed variable or widget on the blog. It is totally un-cluttered.
The only thing missing from it is “categories.” Because they publish a post just once a week - categories are not required now. But when they have 5 pages of archives, thats when they’ll feel the need of categories. I don’t think it’ll be too hard to add categories though.
The detail in NorthXEast is un-imaginable. I personally don’t spend so much time on details. But thats what adds the charm. For eg: the gradient look. The “previous articles” button is jumping out to the top a bit. The ad has a shadow underneath it. A white line divides all the post titles. Small details like that gives a lot more depth to their design.
Hope this helps you. In summary: focus on the 5 main key points: colour. Logo / header. Layout. Fonts. Un-cluttered look.
Posted 04 Aug 2007 #
Great article on 3 Ways of Differentiating Your Blog. I just subscribed to your RSS feed. Does that make me subscriber #501? Will check back frequently.
Posted 12 Aug 2007 #
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Posted 31 Aug 2007 #