Let’s face it: there are literally millions of blogs now in existence on the internet, which can make it quite difficult to compete for attention. Even if a majority of these blogs are poorly managed or otherwise lacking in areas of content and marketing, there is still a need to go above and beyond if you want to be featured on the first page of search results with Google, Bing and others. As bloggers move away from the sole consideration of quality content and into other areas such as marketing and promotion, there is ample need for the knowledge of how best to dominate in search results, social media and other areas on the web. We will detail three ways to success for your blog and how you can begin the process right now, in 2014.

Socialize, Socialize, Socialize

It comes as no surprise that social media is now one of the most popular forms of communication and certainly the most used platform for such on the web. With sites such as Facebook and Twitter now pinging users (whose numbers are in the hundreds of millions for each) with tweets, posts and updates, you cannot neglect the power this medium has to offer. As a blogger, you should already have social media accounts created for this purpose, all of which can be used more effectively than you may already be using them. The best strategies for social media blog marketing involve marketing the information (not the brand and certainly not yourself) and consistently updating your followers on what is going on in your neck of the woods.

Always Be Creating

Your content is the prime reason why anyone comes to your blog – by definition, a blog without content is not really anything other than a place-holder. The more pieces of content you create for your blog, the more chances you have to be picked up by search engines and the more opportunities you will enjoy to promote this content via social media. When readers can trust that your blog will be updated regularly, they will be more likely to sign up for email updates and bookmark your blog for future review. This is one of the most important elements of any blog: a consistent flow of content.

Be Influential

There is more and more buzz as of late about the role that “influencers” play in social media marketing and content marketing in general. Have you used social media to build connections with influencers? If not, then you are missing out on plenty of opportunities to get your content in front of niche industry leaders and push it to the forefront of that industry’s attention. Sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter are the best places to look for these types of individuals; do not be afraid to strike up a conversation with them about your blog, but be weary of shameless promotion right out of the gate.

Conclusion

If you want your blog to dominate in 2014, then there are three specific tips you need to keep in mind. First, always keep creating new content that can be pinging users via search 24/7. Next, you need to distribute that content to additional sources via social media. Last but not least, build out your professional and niche-related connections in order to push more content to the forefront of the most influencers.