Depending on what source you use, there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 million active English language blogs today. That’s some steep competition for your blog. Making yourself stand out and generating readership are your two biggest goals when starting a new blog. Here are four ways to start dominating the internet and marketing your brilliant blog.

1. Give it Away
People are hesitant to give away valuable content for free—especially in the business world. But giving away free content increases your online visibility. Take heart in knowing that several online powerhouses such as Cory Doctrow, Julie Powell, and Brian Clark all give away some of their best advice for free. Don’t know them? Look them up, and start learning from the best in the biz.

2. Write Articles for Other Blogs
Your website will take time to build up an audience. In the meantime, take advantage of others’ blogs and websites that have already established an online presence and write a guest article, linking back to your blog of course. The key here? Use your best, most captivating articles on the others’ blogs. While tempting to save it for your site, people are more likely to see it—and in reading it, visit your site—than if it existed on your site alone.

3. Get your Tweet On
Twitter is a powerful tool, if you know how to use it to your advantage. One of the most important necessities of your blog’s twitter account is followers. Socialnewswatch.com offers a list of 237 Twitter users who will, almost guaranteed, follow you back if you seek them out. Just search “Top 237 Twitter Users Who Will Follow You Back” on Socialnewswatch.com. Once you’re being followed by this nice boost of 200 plus users, utilize it. Don’t just sit there. Interact with them so they’ll interact with you. Promote yourself and promote them. It’s a give and take relationship.

4. Be Quirky
The most evident example of quirkiness in action is David Ogilvy. If you’re not familiar with the story, here it is in a nutshell: to promote an ad campaign, which Ogilvy was modeling for, he put an eye patch on in the picture. Yes, an eye patch. The campaign was a hit due to the mysteriousness and oddity of “The Man in the Hathaway Shirt.” So what will be your blog or website’s eye patch? You need to differentiate yourself from the previously mentioned millions of other bloggers competing for your readers. Try to think of something entirely unique, useful and specific.

Just when you have it all figured out, they keep changing the rules of the game. You’ve spent countless hours learning what to do with Facebook and Twitter and along comes Google with their vision of a social media network. Enter Google+, where Google aims to correct the rigidness of online sharing tools and make the experience more like real life.

Navigating the Stream
Google+ centers around the Stream, which may look similar to your Facebook news feed. That’s where you’ll see the latest updates from your people. Then there’s four core elements: Circles, Hangouts, Huddle and Sparks.

Jump In
If you have a Google account you’re ready to get started. If not set up an account and start searching for contacts. Then you can start creating circles. Circles allow you to organize people into groups so you can share information with specific groups of friends. You’d rather not everyone know about your crazy Friday night. With these circles you can start hangouts where you’ll be able to conduct video conference calls. Huddles give you the opportunity to text an entire circle at once. What a great way to plan that crazy Friday night.

Get Down to Business
You’re probably familiar with setting up pages in Facebook for your business. Google+ isn’t offering that feature to date, but that doesn’t mean your business can’t benefit. For instance, you can feed your Twitter account by using Sparks that allow you to search and share what you’re really in to. This is also where others will find you if you’re writing a blog about your area of expertise. Additionally, set up a circle of your remote employees or clients and start a hangout to have a meeting.

Google+ is showing great potential for business applications but Facebook and Twitter still reign supreme. Continue to strategize ways to use these social media tools in your marketing efforts and keep a keen eye on Google. There’s a good chance their latest project could take off and you’ll already be downstream.