How do you get your blog NOTICED?

I started a blog with an old high school buddy, working about 1 hour a week posting comments, etc. No advertising budget, just very strategic planning. After about 12 months we were named by Time Magazine as one of the Top 25 Blogs in the World for 2009 (http://tinyurl/time25). This is NOT based on traffic, purely on perceived influence, content, etc. This year we were also named "#1 Education Blog" by Bloggers Choice. We also now have partnerships (not ad words / actual deals) with companies like Random House, Monster.com, and others. The blog is DetentionSlip.org and has been called "the perez hilton of education news" - we cover crazy stories from schools.

There are a handful of strategies I've developed that work really well (many of these I've learned as I went and weren't part of our initial plan). I can give you an overview.. I've since gone on to build other category dominating blogs for folks - landing them national TV press, awards, etc. A few of them include:

Great Content - find something that really resonates with your audience and shoot for ever green content if you can. Admittedly, DetentionSlip is lacking in evergreen content as we are a news site - but other sites I run this is a main focus.

Social Gravity - use other big names (people, bloggers, etc) to attract and promote your site for you - (I have days of insight and strategy on this)

Win Contests - find smaller contests on line and win them (again, easier than it sounds)

The Power of Leverage - use previous victories to win bigger contests, get more articles, etc..

Offline Coverage - take what you've done online, and get coverage in local and national publications, radio, and TV (I've done FoxNews, Sirius Radio, CBS Radio, tons of print interviews, etc.)

Get Listed in Top Directories / Aggregators - use the credibility you've built in the above steps to get listed on sites like AllTop & PopUrls(I have the #1 site on AllTop.com for several diff blogs / categories -- for example http://Education.AllTop.Com, we outrank NY Times Education and the US Dept. of Ed)

Repeat - keep using past successes to build a platform for bigger future success. ie, use contest 1 to help win contest 2, to help article 1 to help get into directory 2 to help land ad deal 1, etc. It's all steps in building your profile.

I have specific notes and plans on all of this stuff, just too much for a forum post right now.

P.S. If any of you will be at Underground 6, I'll be there talking to some of the "young entrepreneurs" about my success and might do a Panel for the general attendees. I'd be happy to chat more about winning the blog game.

P.P.S. I've been seeing more and more folks interested in building the credibility / brand / image / prestige factor of their properties / companies / blogs. While you can certainly make millions with no image, and can have a celebrity image with no revenue -- is this something folks are interested in learning more about? I find if you know how to make cash, the press / credibility can really amplify the solid fundamentals.

If there is interest I'd consider building out a product, offering it free to a beta group, and then we could even launch it together. I've never done an info product before (I have physical products I've invented and sell) and am very interested in creating one.