New blogs are popping up every day. With free blog platforms like blogger, wordpress, etc. even a 5 year old can start a blog. This is of course a great thing, but how do you get your site or blog noticed?

Decide what topic you want to have a site about. I recommend you choose something you are passionate about. If you are passionate about something it usually means that you have knowledge about the topic and you don’t get bored quickly with writing new content. When you choose your topic have a look around the internet; are there many sites out there with the same topic? Making money online is a very popular topic, but it also makes it harder to stand out in the crowd.

One of the first things you have to do is write good content; content is king. If you write about stuff that no one cares about or if you write crappy posts, people simply won’t return to your site. But if you write great articles people will come back, or maybe even link to your articles. Don’t be shy in giving your opinion. Sometimes the more controversial, the more people will respond to it.

Try to write on a regular basis. Especially after you just start a new site, try to write every day so the readers have some content to go through or explore.. If you can’t write every day, try to aim for 2 - 3 times a week. If your site gets updated on a regular basis, people will visit your site more often than when you update it once every fortnight.

Another thing that can really help you make stand out in the crowd is your design. If possible make your own design. Good programs to help you with this are photoshop & dreamweaver. Of course there are plenty of other good programs out there, but they are the ones I use. If you have a blog you can download lots of free themes, but there is a big chance that maybe 300 people are using the same theme as yours. So come up with your own design or try to tweak the design you are using.

You can tweak the design of your theme by going into the style sheet. You can change the colors around. A good tool to use for this is the color scheme generator. This way you can find colors that match and all you have to do is copy the hexadecial code (example #B30000).

But probably the best thing to start with if you want to tweak your theme is to make your own header/banner. This will give your blog a personal touch. If you are not good in drawing (like me) or you’re not good at designing in general go to a photo stock site and use a cool font. A good free photo stock site is Morgue File. Another favorite of mine is Istock, where you can get great photo’s or illustrations for a minimal fee. I downloaded the header I use for this blog from Istock for only $1. If you go to Freefonts.com you can find heaps of cool fonts that you can use for your header/banner.

Add a favicon to your site. A favicon is a custom little icon that will appear next to your website or blog URL in the address bar of your browser. They are very easy to make, simply go to favicon from pictures and follow the instructions. It adds another little touch to your site or blog.

Good luck!

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