This is part 3 of the series. You can find the previous posts here: Part 1: Balance, Part 2: Hard Work, Part 3: Stand Out From The Crowd.

As you previously read, I am writing this series to try to explain to bloggers how to be successful. Through my experiences and a lot of research I have been able to narrow successful blogging down into three main parts. The third part deals with making yourself and individual, and not just another robot blogger. What I mean by this is you need to make sure you are providing something different that other bloggers are not.

First and foremost readers will be drawn to your site layout or design. Whether poorly designed or well designed, readers will notice. This is why you should spend a decent amount of time creating a blog that is put together professionally, and do not just copy the template of another blogger. I have seen this time and time again, and I refuse to return to those blogs, simply due to the fact that they cannot individualize themselves.

Another key point that I have realized is the implementation of imagery. Make sure these images pertain to your topic and are placed properly throughout your articles. When doing that, you will notice that many people are drawn to these articles and will tend to read them. Would you rather read a complete page of text, or a page of text that is broken down by some neat looking images?

As you all knew already, one of the more important things to differentiate yourselves would be your content. Not only are duplicate pages frowned upon by viewers, but the search engine and page rank calculators are not friendly with duplicate pages either. As well as seeing the exact same template on various websites, I have seen articles that have been copied and pasted, with very few changes. Personally, I will also not visit those blogs again, as if you cannot even produce your own content, why are you even blogging?

The last thing I have noticed a couple successful bloggers doing would be free prize giveaways. Whether these prizes are for the most comments in a week, randomly drawn from the pool of commentators, or you create some other system, prizes are definitely a way to keep readers interested. After all, who doesn’t like free stuff?

That last point brings up a pretty neat idea. Once traffic grows a little here, I might have to create some type of free prize giveaway myself. Does anybody have any ideas? I would be happy to hear suggestions of how to hold the prize giveaway, and also what people would like to get.

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