if your blog is typical it’s nice–clean lines, easy to understand navigation, and useful content. But it doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from the millions of other blogs out there.

If you want to really stand out from the crowd, you have to get some kind of a buzz going. The ways to do this are:

• Write about something outrageous before anyone else does (like Britney shaving her head for example)
• Write something so useful that millions of people will want to bookmark it and link to it
• Offer readers something for free that will keep them coming back for more. Examples of this might be software, such as how much is your blog worth, or an offer to do something for a reader–something they’d find really useful. The sky’s the limit really–the point is you gotta offer them something they really want.

One important thing: a blog is only as important as its comments, so encourage people. Ask them to comment, and give them link love. Make sure they realize that you don’t employ no-follow. So many people are doing that these days and it doesn’t make sense when you’re trying to establish a blog. WordPress actually has a plugin called LinkLove which I employ to help in this direction.Try and get a few good incoming links. I got a good .edu link, and I’ve been trying to find the wonderful little blog post that helped me to do that. when I track it down I’ll pass it on to you.

Try and get people to favorite you on Technorati too. That can really make a difference. Make sure you include your little icons so readers can write you up to Digg, Delicous and all the others.