Developing your blogging style

I’ve Taken A Few Detours

I remember growing up and all through high school, not knowing what I wanted to do with my life. There were so many choices, and so many possibilities. One week I was set on becoming a scientist, the next I was sure the career path I would follow would be that of an optometrist – then it change to business.

When I finished high school I enrolled in a Bachelor of Biomedical Science – which I did one year of before decided that science wasn’t for me. The next year I completed the first year of a Bachelor of Business, but got frustrated with the fact that all they taught me to do was work for someone else – when I wanted to learn how to start my own business.

After that I started a Diploma of Financial Services with the intent of getting into stock broking, but before I could finish that course I was offered a Traineeship in Real Estate Sales – which I took. At the end of the traineeship I decided that sales wasn’t for me and started working for my dad, building houses – which is what I have been doing for the last 12 months.

Why Am I telling You This?

Because not everyone is able to slip straight into their lifelong career right from high school, sometimes we take detours and other times we have things to learn before we are ready.

It takes a while for us to find out who we are, what we are meant to do and how we are meant to go about doing it. The funny thing is that we never usually end up where we think we will!

I remember when I was growing up, EVERYONE I knew thought I was going to be a scientist, doctor or in some other medical related field. I was smart, I read nonstop, I was interested in it and studied it in my personal time – but as I got older I started to grow and develop. To search and to learn. And I ended up in a totally different (not right or wrong – just different) spot than myself and everyone watching my life had expected.

It Is The Same With Our Blogs

When ever I start a blog, I have it all planned out. The theme, the content, the style. I have a mental picture of how I expect it to look in 6-12 months time. But just like with our lives – it never turns out like we expect!

Looking back at the last 6 months of this blog, I have seen it go through stages of growth as well as times of staleness. I have watched myself change the way I blog and tweak the way I convey my thoughts.

I have tried:

  • List Posts
  • Tutorials
  • Motivational Posts
  • Competitions
  • Video Blogging

And I am sure some of you would by now be thinking ‘ just go ahead and choose your blogging style already.’

But what I am doing now is exactly what I did as I was growing up – I am finding myself and my blogging style. I am seeing what works and what doesn’t in the purpose of finding myself in the midst of millions of other bloggers, and in the process – setting myself apart.

In the last 6 months I have noticed a few things that I have learnt about finding your own unique blogging style that I hope will help you in the pursuit of finding yours.

4 Ways To Develop Your Unique Blogging Style

  1. Look At The Goals Of Your Blog

    blogging goals

    One of the easiest ways to start developing your own unique blogging style is to stop and look at the reason you started blogging.

    With the recent failure of my latest attempt at finding my blogging style, I was forced to stop and take stock and work out where I went wrong.

    This took me back to my goals for this blog and what I found was that I was way off course.

    If you are signed up with StandOutBlogger Underground you would have received my first email in regards to my secret blog launch. In it I looked at the motivation for us choosing to blog – our blogging mission statement.

    This is what I listed the StandOutBlogger mission statement as:

    StandOutBlogger.com will teach and encourage bloggers to use creative thinking to allow themselves to ‘Stand Out’ from the crowd and become successful. In doing so I will build this blog to a successful business, setting myself up as a professional with great credibility in my chosen field, allowing me to create and launched quality branded product while making a full-time income from this blog.

    In writing this it made me realise that if I wanted to building this blog into a successful business and set myself up as a profession within my niche – with credibility, then I needed to treat it like a business. I needed to be professional to earn credibility.

    Have you set goals for your blog? Are you heading in the right direction?

  2. Try New Things

    try new things

    I would never have come to this conclusion if I had not tried out so many different styles and looked at using this blog to try new things.

    When I decided to looking into video blogging and the whole concept of the Blogger Film Festival, I was doing it because one of the core values of this blog is to be creative.

    However, sometimes being creative is stepping out on a limb. And sometimes it includes failing.

    But if we never try new things, how will we ever know our real potential?

    I love the story of Thomas Edison and the invention of the light bulb, because hearing how it took him 10,000 attempts to finally get his initial idea to work encourages me every time one of my ideas fails.

    The good thing is that we will probably never have to try 10,000 before we find a successful blogging style, but we need to be continually trying new things. And even when we start to find our own unique blogging style we can’t stop experimenting and tweaking.

    What are you doing at the moment that is new a creative on your blog?

  3. Check Out Other Blogs Styles

    check out different blog stylesWhich blogs do you love to read and why?

    This is a fantastic place to start when you are looking at your own style. For me personally,

    I love blogs that:

    • Have long detailed posts
    • Are well formatted
    • Focus on quality and not quantity of posts
    • Set a standard in excellence and professionalism

    So I started listing the blogs that I LOVE to read that follow this format.

    These blogs are some of my all time favourite blogs and great examples of bloggers that have put a focus on professionalism and quality.

    Here are a few:

    4. Now if these are the blog styles that I love to read then there is a good chance they could play a sifnificant part in the development of my unique blogging style.

    What are the blogs and blog styles that you love to read?

  4. Just Let It Develop Naturally

    let it develop naturallySometimes things just take time to develop. Just like a new born baby takes time before it starts to walk, we as bloggers cannot expect to jump straight into a new blog and instantly find the blogging style that we will stick with for the life of the blog.

    Take your time and enjoy the ride as you let your unique blogging voice naturally develop.

    Although your blogging style will naturally develop over time, if you start to implement the first three steps:

    • If you look at your blogging goals
    • If you are constantly trying new things with your blog
    • If you are looking at the blog styles of your favourite bloggers

    5. Then you will find your blogging voice a little bit more quickly.

What Are You Doing To Develop Your Blogging Style?

I am definately commited to continually pursue the style of blogging that is my own, because I know that is what makes one blog different from the other – and quite possibly could be the one thing that is the difference between an average blog and a ‘stand out’ blog!

I am committing to focussing:

  • Quality Over Quantity
    This may mean less posts, but the quality will be much higher and hopefully the visitor discussion will be given enough time to generate additional, valuable opinions.
  • Excellence
    I don’t want to be known as an ordinary blogger, or a ‘ok’ blogger. I want to provide unique content in a way that makes people stop and look, and then say ‘This guy has his blogging style down pat!’
  • Influence & Credibility
    With the focus of my blogging be turned towards quality and excellence, I will be using these values, as well as being active in my niche, and responsive to my readers as a means of building my influence and credibility not only within my niche – but also in surrounding niches.

What Will You Commit Too?

I’d love to know what you are doing to develop your unique blogging style!

So if you would like to share your plans or if you have anything else you would like to contribute, feel free to comment below!

Arrows to ecourse

About Thomas Sinfield

Thomas run multiple blogs and is busy testing different strategies and systems to increase profitability and exposure. He is currently working on a new project (yes another blog) that is set to be his most profitable yet.