Techniques to Make Your Blog Stand Out in Jungle of Blogs

Make your site speak for you:

This is why adding voice can help. Podcasts is one tool that could do wonders for your business. A podcast is a small audio snippet that you can upload on your blog/website. This can contain anything, from product descriptions to anecdotes about your company. Why a podcast works better than static text? Simply because it’s more personal. “It’s almost like you are talking to your consumers,” says Prashant Iyer, a freelance web developer, who recently added podcasts to his website. “I am not actually taking up their time exclusively, since they can actually stream the audio and let it play while they are doing other tasks at their computer.”

People tend to multitask in order to be more efficient with how they use their time. Additionally, most users tend to prefer valueadded audio content that is specific to their areas of interest.

Adding podcasts is simple too. You could use services such as Audacity (www.audacity.com) or WebPasties (www.webpasties.com) or Evoca (www.evoca.com). These services also provide tool that let you gain feedback from your consumers. Krishna Monal an eBay seller has added Evoca voice recordings to his listings. "This has certainly increased my sales since my customers actually tell me what they need," he says.

Sprinkle videos:

Another great way to grab consumers’ attention is to have nice colourful videos sprinkled throughout your blog/website. “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is certainly more,” says Roja Sharma, another blogger who sells handicrafts online. She recently added videos of her products on her blog. The ability to insert videos means you can even illustrate complicated steps on a how-to page, or simply make a video of how your product works. Sharma for instance, has uploaded a video of how she makes the colourful dupattas by dipping them in various colour vials. You don’t even need the help of a web developer to link these hefty videos to your website. With Google Videos, this process is quite simple, as you can upload from within your web browser. It’s easy to start: just find a video you like from Google Video or upload your own, then click on the ‘embed link’ on the right side of any playback page to add it to your site.

Distribute leafletters:

Leaflets work wonders in the offline world, so why not distribute them online too? LeafLetter (www.leafletter.com) is one such service that lets you do exactly that. It lets you create smaller versions of your website, blog, or portfolio and distribute them via your social network accounts, so people can preview your work. You can embed them into social networks, blogs, and other web sites with ease. This is best for those engaged in the creative arena—artists, media professionals, online sellers—and are seeking broader exposure for their content. LeafLetter is a Flash-based application which enables users to create miniature web sites (Leaflets). They can then be slipped in anywhere, for example, in the ‘About Me’ section of a MySpace profile, the body of a blog entry, or in the Portfolio section of a photographer’s personal website, all simultaneously.

Source: TOI Extract form Tehc@Work