Get this: more than 4 million blog posts get written daily.

Check out this link at Worldometers to see the live count. Feel free to stay up ’till midnight to see the total count and let me know what the precise number is…

You know a ton of content’s out there. It’s called “content saturation.” Some niches are more bloated than others.

If you’re in a competitive space, how do you get your blog post to stand out? What does a blog post with thousands of shares do that others don’t?

A few things:

1. It’s “New” or “Different”

By far, this is the most powerful thing you can do. Most content’s created by writers who simply see what else is available online and say the same thing. So, it’s often regurgitation.

You may have to start at that point when first beginning.

But as you get familiar with your niche, you’ll find deeper and more fascinating insights. And you’ll come up with your own ideas.

By all means, publish those!

2. It’s Useful

Most content simply tells you what to do:

• “Be more engaging”

• “Be interesting”

• “Be funny”

And that happens because of the whole “regurgitation effect” you learned about before. To be useful, your content must actually show your readers what qualities like those mean.

Use examples. Support those examples with stats and stories.

Another way to say this is to create “actionable” content. Your readers must have some way of taking what they just read, applying it to their lives, and benefiting from it.

3. It Gets Promoted

Again, because there’s so much content out there, the stuff that gets promoted has the best chance of getting attention.

10 years ago, there weren’t so many blogs out there. The quality wasn’t nearly as high. So, it was relatively easily to get found and noticed in search.

But today, you have to actively plan how you’re going to get your content in the hands of your target audience. Simply posting your article on your blog and sending it out on social media isn’t enough to get noticed.

You have to do more, like marketing to influencers. Or guest blogging.

4. It Uses Rich Media 

For B2B audiences, you don’t need as much media. They like text and useful information above all else.

But, adding videos, original graphics, screenshots, quotes, and click-to-tweet options help you keep audiences of all kinds engaged.

This effect simply gets even more pronounced with consumer audiences.

5. It’s Consistently High-Quality

You could almost throw away the term “blog” these days. Instead, you should call it a “digital magazine.”

A blog is no longer a simple thing where you churn out as much content as possible. Rather, you put in your best effort every time and deliver as much value to your audience as you can.

That’s because the quality of your content determines the quality of the leads you get from your website.

It really is that simple. Write what everyone else writes, and you get so-so quality leads. Go above and beyond, dare to be new and original, do research and gruntwork no one else’s willing to do, and watch your lead quality (and quantity) skyrocket!

So that’s what makes your blog stand out in 2016. Innovation constantly pushes things forward. So it’ll be interesting to see what top blogs look like in 5 years!

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