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Depending on what source you use, there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 million active English language blogs today. That’s some steep competition for your blog. Making yourself stand out and generating readership are your two biggest goals when starting a new blog. Here are four ways to start dominating the internet and marketing your brilliant blog.

1. Give it Away
People are hesitant to give away valuable content for free—especially in the business world. But giving away free content increases your online visibility. Take heart in knowing that several online powerhouses such as Cory Doctrow, Julie Powell, and Brian Clark all give away some of their best advice for free. Don’t know them? Look them up, and start learning from the best in the biz.

2. Write Articles for Other Blogs
Your website will take time to build up an audience. In the meantime, take advantage of others’ blogs and websites that have already established an online presence and write a guest article, linking back to your blog of course. The key here? Use your best, most captivating articles on the others’ blogs. While tempting to save it for your site, people are more likely to see it—and in reading it, visit your site—than if it existed on your site alone.

3. Get your Tweet On
Twitter is a powerful tool, if you know how to use it to your advantage. One of the most important necessities of your blog’s twitter account is followers. Socialnewswatch.com offers a list of 237 Twitter users who will, almost guaranteed, follow you back if you seek them out. Just search “Top 237 Twitter Users Who Will Follow You Back” on Socialnewswatch.com. Once you’re being followed by this nice boost of 200 plus users, utilize it. Don’t just sit there. Interact with them so they’ll interact with you. Promote yourself and promote them. It’s a give and take relationship.

4. Be Quirky
The most evident example of quirkiness in action is David Ogilvy. If you’re not familiar with the story, here it is in a nutshell: to promote an ad campaign, which Ogilvy was modeling for, he put an eye patch on in the picture. Yes, an eye patch. The campaign was a hit due to the mysteriousness and oddity of “The Man in the Hathaway Shirt.” So what will be your blog or website’s eye patch? You need to differentiate yourself from the previously mentioned millions of other bloggers competing for your readers. Try to think of something entirely unique, useful and specific.