Blogging is a quick, easy way to build a web presence with very little technical knowledge. But in order for your blog to be successful (and profitable) you need lots of targeted traffic and readers. And with hundreds of thousands of new blogs coming online every day, this is becoming harder and harder.

So, how can a blogger compete and build a high-traffic blog that makes blogging worth the time and effort?

1) By blogging better.

2) By using blog tools to make blogging faster, easier and more effective.

3) By doing more than your competition off-site or off-blog.

I'm going to go over some blogging tips to help you stand above other bloggers, and suggest the best blog tools to get the job done.

Here are some tips to set you apart from other bloggers:

a) Use Wordpress and host your own blog. While there are plenty of free blogging platforms and solutions, Wordpress is the best (in my opinion), and keeps getting better. And you should host it on your own domain, instead of the free blog domain.

Not only is this more professional looking, but it gives you complete control. The last thing you want to do is have your blog host change their policies and delete your blog.

I use Hostgator, because it has Fantastico in the cPanel which makes installing Wordpress push button simple. Plus it is very inexpensive.

b) Use a professional theme. While there are thousands, if not millions of free Wordpress themes out there, I would recommend paying for a professional theme.

Free themes could have slow code and lack of support if something ever goes wrong with the theme. On the other hand, the paid option from an established company comes with support to make sure your blog runs smoothly well into the future.

I use Revolution Themes on my blog Unfair Web Advantage.

c) Use Feedblitz for email blog updates. Feedblitz allows you to use your RSS feed to set up email updates. For example, I set mine up to send out updates once a week. When people sign up, they get an email once a week with the latest post. And all this is done AUTOMATICALLY!

Plus, you can set up an autoresponder for your update list. I use this to offer a free report called, "7 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Starting My Internet Business" when people sign up for updates. Go to Unfair Web Advantage to see this in action.

d) Only post quality content. Make sure you only post high-quality content to your blog. There are a lot of junk blogs out there already... don't add to the garbage.

Come up with a publishing schedule that includes a combination of top quality posts and smaller (but still valuable) "utility" posts. It's impossible to come up with GRAT content every day, but you should strive for great once a week and good on the rest of the days.

e) Promote your blog off-site. Just don't make a blog post and hope you get picked up by the search engines. You'll find this is a very hard way to gain any type of momentum. Get your blog in front of the people who can benefit from it.

Here are a couple of things you can do...

- Article marketing

- Making comments on other, relevant blogs

- Trackbacks

These 5 tips will give you a leg up on other bloggers... but it gets even better!

These tools give you an edge over your competition. Whether it be helping you make quick, high-quality posts, get immediate trackback links, announce your post to the social site or helping you be the first to make a comment on other sites... these tools will set you apart form other bloggers!

Utility Poster: This software lets you make quick, high-quality post to your blog by simply clicking and dragging related content. Super fast posts that give your readers high value have never been easier.

Check out this video to see it in action.

Trackboost: This software is very similar to Utility Poster... but with the added bonus of making Trackbacks automatic. You can use this to make quick utility posts or add quick trackbacks to previous posts super simple. This dramatically increases the amount of links pointing back to your blog from relevant blogs! (This only works with Wordpress blogs)

Here is a video of Trackboost in action.

Web 2 Submitter: After you make a great post, you should submit the post to appropriate social marketing sites. This software makes this very simple and cuts hours off the work of doing it all manually.

Get instant traffic to your blog.

Comment Sniper: This is FREE software that allows you to monitor other blogs in your niche and be notified when they make a new post. Then you can go over to the post and make a comment with a link back to your blog. Since you'll be notified immediately, you can be one of the first ones to comment... greatly increasing the visibility of your comment and amount of people who click through to your blog.

Download Comment Sniper Free