It is increasing difficult to stand out from the crowd and when it comes to blogging you can be sure that there are plenty of other businesses in your niche that are clamouring for the traffic, social shares and potential customers.
So how do you stand out?
Pimp out those blog posts! Make them exciting, make people want to share them, make people want to subscribe to your newsletter...make people want to come back to your site rather than a competitors.
With this in mind I am going to show you three great (and free) tools for pimping out those blog posts and making you traffic more than a one hit wonder
Create Interactive Graphs Based On Your Data
Use: http://infogr.am
Got some cool data to share with your readers? Sign up with infogr.am and you can quickly and easily turn it into an interactive graph that you can embed on your site.
What will it look like?
How did I do it?
It's all simple stuff - I signed up for an account using my twitter account, uploaded my data that I had collected as a csv and then edited the graph so that I was happy with it. Bingo!
Best feature?
The fact that you can have this up and running and embedded on your website in minutes. If you have data collected already that you can use this is a great way to present it.
Create Interactive Timelines
What will it look like?
How did I do it?
In a similar fashion to the example above I collected the data that I needed (in this case for a Google Timeline - but you can make much more simple versions that take a lot less time!!). Played around with colours, the zoom and added text and pictures until I was happy with it. Another easy way to create something that will set you apart form the competition.
Best feature?
The flexibility in how you present your timeline - adding photos, links and as much or little detail as you want.
Create Interactive Videos
What will it look like?
How did I do it?
Took one of of our videos from our YouTube channel (the service allows several other options as well) and then when through their four step process (1. Add video, 2. Add branding, 3. Add Apps, 4. Publish) to create the video above. Simply embed on your site and hey presto! Alternatively you can give these videos away to relevant sites in your niche (or partner sites) and people have quick access to get to the content that you want them to.
Best feature?
The wide range of apps that are available that make these videos so flexible (info, rss, twitter, maps, coupons, eBay, Flickr, Facebook, iContact, Mailchimp, Picassa, QR codes, Scribd, Skype, SlideShare can all be added as apps - with other more general ones as well).
Google has made it obvious recently (after saying it for years) that content that sings will help you win in the search rankings - if your content is the best that you can make it then you deserve a place at the top of the search results.