How to Stand Out From Your Kajillion Competitors

Like a fabulous party, your website should give every visitor something to take home with them, whether a fantastic conversation, freebie, or good story to share. You don't want to bore your guests and make them scurry away, feeling like they wasted time and got nothing out of the experience. Think about your reader as your guest. You want them to stick around, think about what you’ve said, tell all their friends what an awesome time they had---and come back to the next shindig you throw.

So, how do you do that?

At a MarketingProfs Content Marketing Crash Course class, the instructor said the most important question to ask yourself is: "What do you stand for?" If you can answer that question, your content will have its focus.

"It’s not what you sell; it’s what you stand for," Joe Pulizzi said. The content that you share should not be about you or your products or services. It “attracts and/or retains customers by creating/curating valuable and compelling content to maintain and change a behavior.”

This means you need to figure out what makes you unique, what you can give clients or readers that is beyond the regular ol' stuff that your competitors are peddling.

What Do You Stand For?

Let's say you join the hot small-biz trend by opening up a cupcake shop. You also have a shiny new company website, blog, Facebook Page, and Twitter account. Now, your cupcake blog is one of the kajillion cupcake shops online---but you start getting more popular than everyone. For example, the comment thread on your blog becomes the equivalent of a cozy shop packed with chatting, happy customers. How did that happen?

You focused on what makes you unique. Your content stands out with its unique advice and expertise shared without shilling. Your shop is the only one that tells guests specifically how to take cupcakes to parties without wrecking the frosting or how to turn your love of Psych into pineapple-flavored cupcakes. You don't tell them to buy your cupcakes---but because they frequent your site, when they get the need for something sweet (and who doesn't?), they will turn to you.

Being interesting means giving your guests something to take home. Consider these ideas for making your content unique and having readers leave your online space with something to chew on: