The “How To Start a Blog” Series: Tips and Suggestions for Launching a Successful Blog http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/003059.html
Part I -- Before You Begin
In his book Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation, Hugh Hewitt recommends a series of posts that I had written on blogging. The initial purpose of the Notes on Blogging feature was to apply and pass on lessons I had learned from studying successful bloggers. After reviewing the series, though, I realized that the target audience was other bloggers and that I had failed to address one of the most essential topics – how to get started. This set of additional posts is included to help those thinking of starting a blog avoid many of the pitfalls and mistakes that can be an impediment to blogging success. The seeds of blogging success are sown before you ever start a blog. Mistakes can often be overcome but it always comes at price, whether in time, money, or readership. The longer you wait to correct them the more they will limit your success in this venture. Adhering to the following tips and principles, however, will keep you from falling into the traps that often snare new blogs: Read First. Blog later. – How many different blogs have you read? That’s not enough. You need to read more. Search around and visit a wide range of sites. Visit the TTLB Ecosystem and randomly visit blogs in each tier level. Read the uberbloggers who have more readers than most daily newspapers. Read the up-and-coming stars (often the ones the big name bloggers are linking to) that are gaining attention. And most importantly, read dozens of micro-blogs, the ones with less than 100 hits a day. You will learn a great deal from the exquisitely designed and well-written blogs. You’ll learn even more from the slapdash, poorly edited, and boring sites. Understand what makes some blogs better than others before you start your own and you will have taken the first step to sucess. Know Your Role – Why do you want to start a blog? Before you ever begin you need to be able to answer that simple question. Blogs can be a used as a marketing tool for your company, as a tool to keep in touch with friends, as a way to showcase your writing talents, or as a place to vent your opinion. You could even use your blog for all of those purposes. But if you want to achieve success you need to focus your efforts. The blogosphere is a market in which everyone is competing for “mindspace” – the attention, respect, and trust of blog readers. Fortunately, blogging is not a zero-sum game and while the market is finite, it is also extremely large, constantly expanding, and has
few barriers to entry. You can attract readers but you must first know what audience you are aiming for. If you don’t know why anyone should read your blog, then you shouldn’t be surprised when you find that no one does. You Get What You Pay For -- You can start and maintain a blog without ever spending a dime. The low-cost of entry is one of the main reasons that so many blogs are started. It is also one of the reasons more than half of new blogs are abandoned within the first week. If you plan to take blogging seriously (and if you don’t then you can stop reading this post) you will have to put a few dollars into the venture. Fortunately, blogging can be an extremely inexpensive hobby. Using a cut-rate domain name registration and hosting service, you can start a blog for around twenty dollar. I recommend paying a bit more for a hosting service that will allow you to upgrade your bandwidth. When your blog goes from receiving 12 hits a day to 10,000 hits an hour (and yes, it can happen) you need to be prepared. Choose a hosting service that will automatically charge you for surges in bandwidth. You don’t want your site to crash under the weight of an Instalaunche. Be prepared for success. If it’s temporary it will only cost you a few bucks. If it’s permanent sell Blogads. But if you aren’t ready when success comes knocking it likely won’t be back for a return visit. Choose Your Blog Name – Carefully – Look around the blogosphere and you will see an inordinate number of blogs with silly names. Most people don’t give much thought when they start a blog and choose the first name that pops into their head. Big mistake. Your blog name not only represents your blog, it also represents you. Companies spend a considerable amount of time and energy into choosing names for their products. You should do the same. The name is one of the key components of “branding” and getting it right is essential in marketing your blog. If you are an exceptional blogger you may be able to compensate for a blog name like “Mother May I Sleep With Treacher.” But don’t take unnecessary risks. Whenever possible, see if your own name is available. It’s good enough for you; it should be good enough for your blog. It’s also catchier. If you can remember the name Hugh Hewitt or Mark D. Roberts then you can remember their blogs. Sometimes this isn’t a viable option. Your name may not be available or it may be a Slavic name without any vowels. If you can’t use your own name then choose one that is short and memorable. It doesn’t have to be obvious or boring -- more people use Google and Yahoo in an hour than will use SearchEngine.com in a lifetime -- but it should be something that you wouldn’t be embarrassed to have on a business card.
Part II -- The Beginning Bloggers Toolbox
Blogging isn’t about the underlying technology but about content. What you write is far more important than the means by which you send it out into the blogosphere. But building your blog requires a familiarity with a few essential tools.
As you become more comfortable with the medium you’ll find dozens that you’ll want to add to your toolbox in order to make the process of blogging more effective. But beginning a blog requires only a few basic items. Here are four invaluable ones you’ll need to get started on the path to success: Publishing platforms – The interface between you and the blogosphere is the publishing platform that translates your brilliant prose into a readable format. A few of the more popular ones are Movable Type, Blogger, and Word Press. Your comfort level with HTML and other web applications will play a role in which to choose so talk to other bloggers and ask their advice before settling on one. Read the user forums to get an idea of the problems that arise and the technical support available. Also, keep in mind that your choice of hosting service will affect how easy or difficult it will be to install the platform. If it all possible, choose a service that is “blog friendly” and offers free installation. Templates -- The easiest way to determine what type of template you should use is to simply steal someone else’s idea. Originality is highly overrated. No matter how impressive your site's design may be, your success will be based on your content. Focus on making it readable and user friendly. No one is going to visit an impressively designed site that has nothing to say. But even the most noteworthy content can be lost behind a poor design (i.e., blue text on a yellow background). Once you have a basic idea how you want your blog to look, find someone who has something similar and copy their style, tweaking it enough to make it your own. Ask them where they found their layout. Most bloggers are more than willing to help someone who admires their taste. (Keep in mind that your choice of templates will be limited by the type of publishing platform that you choose.) Hit counters – If it doesn’t matter to you if anyone reads what you write, then you don’t have a blog, you have a diary. Most of us do care (perhaps more than we should). But readership is important and you will need to know how many people visit your site. The unit of measure for this is “site hits”, the primary currency of the blogosphere. Since a key barometer of your success will be how many people visit your blog on a daily basis, you'll want to keep a close eye on this number. For this you’ll need Sitemeter. There are other hit counters that you may choose to use but they should be in addition to this one. Although Sitemeter can be used for free, its worth is invaluable. Put one at the bottom of your blog and make it available for everyone to see. So you only get 15 hits a day – and the traffic is all from your own family. It doesn’t matter. Newspapers are required to be open and honest about their circulation figures. You should be too. Get in the habit from the very beginning of being open, honest, and transparent. Don’t pretend to have more readers than you do. Unless your traffic is so impressive that it makes Glenn Reynolds jealous there’s no need to brag. Every hit you have means
someone cared enough to visit your blog. Cherish every one and make sure your readers realize that you appreciate their taking time out of their day to visit your site. Link Tracking – While site hits may be the reigning currency, the true coin of the realm is influence. And that is measured in links. Hit count is a measure of overall readership while link count is a measure of your influence within the blogosphere itself. The more bloggers link to you the more influential you are as a blogger. To find out who has added you to their blogroll or who was impressed enough by something you wrote to point it out, use Technorati. All you do is type in your blog’s address and it shows you a complete list of who is linking to your site. Pay close attention to the bloggers who link to you. It shows that they were impressed (or outraged) enough by you that they took the time to both visit your site and include a mention of it on their own. For a list of more blog tools visit the Weblogs Compendium.
Part III -- How to Become an A-List Blogger
The information in the first two posts in this series is intended as advice for anyone who wants to launch a blog. The rest of the series, however, is aimed at those who want something more. While there are as many reasons for wanting to start a blog as there are bloggers, there is a particular segment that will view blogging as a powerful tool for projecting influence. These new bloggers will look at the “A”-list of the blogosphere and wonder how they can break into their ranks. Not being a member of this elite circle of bloggers, I can’t provide advice from my own personal experience. But just as a biographer can glean insights from a study of great presidents, I think a study of the “A”-list can provide a few clues into what makes them successful. After giving the subject a considerable amount of thought and attention, I’ve noticed three specific ways for breaking into the top tier of bloggers: A. Possess the attributes of the top ten bloggers (e.g., white American male Ivy Leagueeducated lawyer/journalist/academic). (For more see: Notes on Blogging #9 -- How to Become a Higher Being) B. Be hired by Nick Denton, the foremost blog entrepreneur and purveyor of smut/gossip/smutty gossip within the blogosphere. C. Follow the “Morrissey Method.” Unless you already have a resume similar to the top ten bloggers or a job interview with Nick Denton, A and B are probably not viable options. That leaves only C -- the Morrissey Method. Fortunately, it's all you need for a shot at becoming an A-list blogger. In late September of 2003, Ed Morrissey launched his new blog, Captain’s Quarters. Although his only experience as a writer of commentary was letters to the editor and other opinions for his local newspaper, he chose to jump into the crowded field of news
analysis. Still, he quickly carved out his place for himself and within the first month had produced over 300 posts. His work began to be noticed by established bloggers like Hugh Hewitt, Power Line, and Instapundit. In February he was celebrating his 75,000th visitor and by late May he had 395 unique inbound links. Then he hit the tipping point. During the summer he received his 1,000,000th visit, broke into the TLLB Top 25, and was invited by the GOP to be an officially sanctioned blogger at the Republican National Convention. As the year ends he is ranked #15 in the TLLB with 1482 unique inbound links, has an average of 12,000 site visits a day, and was recently voted “Best Conservative Blog” in the 2004 Weblog Awards. Ed Morrissey is intelligent. But smart bloggers are a dime a dozen. Morrissey is prolific. But there are thousands of bloggers who can crank out more posts in a day than he does in a week. Morrissey is also a writer of considerable skill. But writing ability is a common attribute among bloggers. So what makes him different, what sets him apart from those who haven’t achieved his level of recognition? I believe it can be attributed to four traits that form a symbiotic whole: consistency, quality, work ethic, and ambition. Consistency -- Morrissey’s niche is current events. Before most people have even heard of a breaking story, he’ll have already produced a post providing his analysis and opinion. He doesn’t wait until everyone else has jumped on the bandwagon before he chimes in; he gets out in front on a story every single day. The vast majority of the time he’ll cover a story that will not catch fire throughout the rest of the blogosphere. But when a brushfire breaks out he’ll have already been fanning the flames. Morrissey isn’t a prophet. He’s just consistent. Quality – When it comes to blogging, quality will not make you successful. You can write the perfect post and even if it is the talk of the Internet, it will soon be forgotten. If you want to be a successful blogger you need to combine quality with consistency. Write that on a post-it and attach it to your laptop. Make it your mantra. Whatever you do, remember it. Without quality posts, consistency is a waste of your reader’s time. Without consistent output, quality is a waste of your time. Morrissey is successful in large part because he consistently produces quality work. Work ethic – You don’t have to post every day to be a successful blogger but you do have to “blog” everyday. You have to be thinking about the next blog post or series. You have to be thinking how a news event affects your readers. You have to be willing to write even when you would rather watch TV or take a nap. You must have a consistent work ethic. Let me clarify that this trait isn’t necessary to be a blogger. Blogging can be a form of enjoyment or relaxation just as jogging can be used as a means of relieving stress. But just as there is a difference between the casual jogger and the competitive runner, there is a difference between the average blogger and those destined for success. If you want to
compete at the Boston Marathon you have to be willing to put in the lonely hours of work. You have to be willing to constantly run, even when it's not "fun." The same holds true for anyone who wants to be a successful blogger. Morrissey has risen to the top because he has a brutally demanding work ethic. If you want to achieve his level of success then you must be willing to do the same. Ambition – Morrissey started blogging twelve days before I did. Because we started around the same time I’ve used him as a benchmark for blogging success. We frequent the same blog circles and I consider him one of my “blog buddies.” I point this out to establish my credibility in remarking on what I consider to be one of his most seminal intangible traits – his ambition. Many bloggers want to be “successful.” For most the term has a very vague meaning, similar to wanting to win the lottery or have a book published. They view it as a end state to be achieved rather than as an ongoing process. Morrissey thinks differently. He understands that to be successful you have to do what will make you successful. Every. Single. Day. He doesn’t have a vague “dreamer’s ambition” that hopes success will find him someday. He has the ambition of a realist who understands that he not only has to protect what he has built -- respect, trust, reliability -- but that he must continuously strive to expand his readership and broaden his influence. Not everyone has that level of ambition. Most bloggers don’t even need it. But if you are going to rise to the top you have to have the drive to carry you there. Becoming an "A"-List blogger requires dedication. Blogging is easy. Anyone can start a blog. Having a successful and popular blog is difficult. Incredibly difficult. Even if you are consistent, ambitious, produce quality work, and have a dedicated work ethic, you may not be successful. Blogging, like life, doesn’t come with guarantees. But if you truly want to use your blog to impact the world, then you should follow the proven steps to success, you should pay close attention to the Morrissey Method.
Part V - Owning a Micro-Niche
If you’ve made it this far in the series you may be growing discouraged. You want to make an impact as a blogger and are willing to put in the effort. But you just can’t spare three hours a day reading blogs and writing posts. You have PTA meeting to attend. Grad school homework to complete. Bible study meetings. A husband or wife, kids, a mortgage. You have a life. Relax. You can’t still become a hugely influential blogger. All you have to do is be the top blogger in a micro-niche.
A niche blogger is one that focuses on macro topics like religion, law, or politics. A micro-nice blogger is one that hones in on a micro area of those fields -- Orthodox Judaism, appeals law, or the South Dakota legislature. The niche areas are crowded, full of stiff competition, and dominated by “A”-list blogs. The micro-niche areas are often wide open, underserved, and when you own a subject you become the A-list blog. Here are a few techniques for developing a successful micro-niche blog: Have the Information Come to You – One of the most appealing aspects of developing a micro-niche blog is that it takes very little time to keep updated on a subject. Often you can have the information delivered straight to your inbox. For example, Google has a service called Google News Alerts where you enter a specific word or string of words that you want to keep an eye out for (i.e., stem-cell, Ukraine, epistemology) and Google will notify you whenever it appears in a news story. You can even have it set to send as it happens, once per daily, or on a weekly basis. Another way to monitor your topic is to search what other blogs are saying. Blogpulse, Daypop, and Technorati are all useful for searching word strings. You may be a stay-athome parent but by using this method you can appear to be the blogosphere’s foremost expert on Russian politics, winter sports, Green party politicians or any one of millions of other subjects. Know Who’s Paying Attention – Who "owns" the micro-niche of nanotechnology? Howard Lovy. Why? Because Glenn Reynolds is interested in nano-tech and often links to Nanobot. Reynolds doesn’t have to spend hours every day staying abreast of the developments in the field because Lovy is doing it for him. By owning the micro-niche, Lovy provides a shortcut to pertinent information for the busy A-lister. The ability to catch the attention of an influential blogger conveys "trusted expert" status on Lovy and his blog. Find out what bloggers share an interest in your topic and then market to them. They may not check your blog every day but if you can provide timely and important news and information you will stay within their peripheral vision. That likely wouldn’t happen if you were just one of a million blogs writing about the topic du jour. Run Blogads on Your Site – There are two reasons you’ll want to incorporate Blogads into your micro-niche blog. The first is that even if you only sell a couple of ads at rockbottom rates you’ll be able to cover the operating expenses. The second is that is lends an air of credibility to your site: if you have advertiser there must be a reason. Right? Just “fake it until you can make it.” Give away free ads to stoke interest. For example, choose a favorite, semi-obscure book on your micro-niche topic, and make it a free ad on your site. Don’t wait for a potential advertiser to ask you if you’d consider running advertising. It’s not likely to happen. Take the initiative. Make them realize that their product matches your audience.
Create Compelling Content – You can be successful by being nothing more than a news aggregator. But you can become a star by creating you own compelling content. You don’t need a PhD in a subject to have something interesting to say. You just need a passionate interest. Few people will know enough about the subject to have formed an informed opinion. Give them one. Let them leave your blog thinking that they know something more about ______ than they came in with. Everyone relies on experts. Be that expert. Another simple method is to provide original interviews. Find an email address for a unknown professor/author/politician that wrote a paper/book/speech on the topic. Ask them to submit to an email interview and then post it on your blog. Most people would be flattered, especially if you come across as the blog on the subject of interest. You'll have an exclusive that no one else has. Think creatively about other similar ways to stand out. The blogosphere doesn't need another opinion on Presidential politics. There is -- quite literally -- millions of those already. What we need is enthusiastic bloggers writing about topics we didn't know we cared about. Fill that role and you will find an audience.
Part VI – Three Essential Elements of Blog Design
Because there are numerous books and sites dedicated to web-design, I won’t offer too many suggestions on how to spruce up your blog. To be honest, I wouldn't have much advice to give since my own blog is rather dull compared to my more design-savvy friends, like Kevin Holtsberry and Ambra Nykola. But while I envy their layouts and color schemes I take comfort in knowing that aesthetic excellence isn’t necessary to have a successful blog. There are, however, three essential ideas that should guide the process of designing your blog: (1) Content is King, (2) Convey Information, and (3) Don’t Choke the Bandwidth. (1) Content is King – If you have a beautifully designed blog but lack compelling content you can get people to visit your site – once. After a few seconds spent envying your aesthetic sensibility they will leave to go visit some bland blog that has consistently good content. “Content is King” was first told to me, ironically, by King from King of Fools when I first started blogging. I’ve never forgot that. You shouldn’t either. (2) Convey Information – Most successful blogs serve the functions of a business card, a rolodex, and online magazine. Each of those requires that certain information be conveyed: Business Card Name - The first information that should be provided is your blog name. While this might appear obvious, many bloggers – particularly those whose URL is different from the blog name -- fail to make this clear. Make it prominent enough that new readers will catch it quickly but not so intrusive that it gets in the way.
Tag line – Many readers will often find your site after clicking a link from another blog. Once they arrive they should see your blog name and then have some form of introduction. Have a line or two that give them an idea of what your blog is about. Don’t make it too complicated. Mine is “Reflections on culture, politics, and religion from an evangelical worldview.” It’s not catchy but it's to the point. Readers should be able to leave with at least a vague idea of what the blog is about. You don’t have to say that you’re a “neo-Marxist libertarian” or a “Right-wing nutcase who hates liberals.” Just say something along the lines that you write about “politics.” Contact info – Have an email address. Use a free service (i.e., Yahoo, Hotmail) if you don’t want to give out the one you normally use. But have a way for people to contact you. Most people will look for a means of contacting you on your sidebar so put it in an obvious location. Rolodex Blogrolls – You need a blogroll. In fact, I would argue that you need several blogrolls. You cannot become a successful blogger without a blogroll anymore than you could become a CEO without a “Rolodex.” Your blogroll conveys several types of information about you and your blog: Primary blogroll: The first blogroll you should have is a list of blogs you read often. This lets these blogs know that you are a frequent reader and part of their “social network.” It also tells your readers a lot about you. If the only blogs you have are the “big names” like Andrew Sullivan or Atrios then you probably aren’t going to have unique information to share. You give the impression, whether true or not, that you are just part of the mass audience that reads what everyone else is reading. Show some individuality. When I look at a blogroll I want to see names of blogs that I’ve never heard of before. It makes me wonder what I’m missing by not having them on my blogroll. If you don’t have a blogroll at all then you’re not a blogger that should be taken seriously. A blogroll shows that you are part of a community rather than a solitary hermit separating yourself from the unwashed masses. I can’t even imagine consistently reading a blog that doesn’t have a blogroll. Your blogroll, however, shouldn’t be a long unbroken list. Break it up into chunks of blogs. Use a taxonomy. On his own (now defunct) blog Josh Claybourn categorized his blogroll using Beatle’s songs. I use the Seven Cardinal Virtues and the Seven Deadly Sins (in Latin). Oxblog uses famous politicians and thinkers. You can use almost anything. Be creative. This is one area when you can add style and individuality while also conveying information about your personality. Reciprocal blogroll -- In part four I argued the case for having a reciprocal blogroll. I recommend keeping it separate from your primary blogroll, the blogs you read daily or weekly. But don’t just add them to the list and forget about them. These bloggers
comprise a large chunk of your social network. Keep in touch with them. At a minimum, visit these blogs at least once every few weeks. Alliance Blogrolls -- There are dozens of blog “alliances” arranged around politics, religion, common interests, and other topics. If you choose to add them to your blog, limit them to two, or at most, three. More than three and the blogrolls just become useless wastes of space. (3) Online Magazine Blog posts – This is the reason that you blog: to post your opinions and perspectives for the rest of the world to read. The blog post is the most important information presented on your blog. Make sure it is readable and unobstructed by following these steps: Edit your work – Brilliant thought is rarely conveyed by sloppy writing. Proofread and spellcheck before you post. When errors slip thru correct them quickly. Use Headlines – Always have a title for your post, preferably one that hints at the content within. Do not just drop a block of text onto the page and expect people to read it. Readers don’t want to have to read 200 words into a post before they find out you are writing about your cat. Better to give them a warning, even if it’s nothing more than “Another Post About My Cat.” Consider using subheads – Steal a trick from newspaper layout. Instead of just writing a title, think about using a sub-head as well: “Tabby Tales: Further Adventures of a Super Siamese." Use Paragraphs – Break the text up into readable chunks, preferably no more than four or five sentences. Also use blockquotes or some other method to set apart items that you are quoting. Don’t Choke the Bandwidth Keep it Simple – Somewhere out there is a reader who has the potential to be your blog’s biggest fan. Unfortunately, they have a 56K modem with a slow dial-up connection. If it takes them 30 minutes to download your page they will not stick around long enough to recognize your genius. Just because you have a high-speed DSL or cable connection does not mean that everyone does. Design your blog with the slow-modem people in mind. Use graphics sparingly – Before you put a graphic on your blog ask yourself if it conveys information that cannot be adequately expressed by using text. If it can't, then use the graphic. If it can, then think twice before adding it. The use of graphics and pictures should always be a conscious choice. Don’t just add them because you can. Compress Your JPGs – Always compress your JPGs to the smallest size possible without losing their clarity. Squeezing a few bits out of every picture will allow your page to download faster. If you don’t have a program that allows JPG compression you can download one for free at IrfanView.
Addendum: The 5/150 Principle
Imagine that you've been provided the opportunity to hold a daily public conference. Six days a week between a dozen and a few hundred people gather together for the sole purpose of hearing what you think. Some of them find you insightful, even brilliant while others think you’re a blithering idiot. Each day, though, they come to hear you give an opinion about current events, expound upon an obscure topic of personal interest, or hear you share an amusing anecdote. A few stay thru your entire oration while others leave after only a few words. But every day someone shows up for your briefing. How would you handle the pressure? How much time and effort would you put into your remarks? How would you use such an incredible opportunity? While this may sound rather far-fetched, the fact is that millions of people already have a similar opportunity. I’m one such person. I suspect you are too. We’re called bloggers. Unfortunately, we bloggers rarely appreciate the power we possess. Instead of being constantly amazed at the potential influence we wield, we carp and whine (if only to ourselves) that we don’t have the links of Glenn Reynolds or the site hits of Daily Kos. We believe that since thousands of people could be reading our blogs that we should have thousands of readers. If we don’t then we judge ourselves to be inadequate. But how important are links and hits? Try this experiment: write down (a) a list of 10 blogs that are the most linked, (b) a list of 10 blogs that receive the most traffic, and (c) a list of 10 blogs that you regularly read that make you think for the equivalent of five minutes a day. Once you have your list you can check the links and the hits at the TTLB Ecosystem. Now how many on (a) and (b) did you get right? How many of the ones on (a) and (b) are also on list (c)? My guess is that you were only able to name (at most) five of the ten blogs on the first two lists and that only one or two show up on your own list. What this shows is that measurements we often use to determine a blog’s “success” have little to do with their actual ability to influence. If you are like most blog readers you have clicked on a link from a high-traffic blog hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. Yet how many of those links resulted in you adding that blog to your own blogroll? Almost never. Since it doesn't have a long-term impact, why do we spend so much time fretting over site hits or hoping to get linked to Instapundit? What we should be focused on is harnessing the power we have to achieve our goals and purposes. If we truly want to have a bigger impact we need to start by thinking smaller. If you have a blog that is read by more than a few dozen readers then you are making a bigger impact than you probably realize. If you have 50 people reading your blog then you have more people in your “classroom” than most professors at Harvard. If you have 90 readers then you have more people in your “pews” than most pastors have in their
churches every Sunday. And if you have more than 1000 readers a month you have a larger “circulation” than most poetry and short story magazines. But having a larger audience doesn’t necessarily translate into having more influence. As Malcolm Gladwell argues in his book The Tipping Point, the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship is about 150. In blogging terms, this means that when your readership grows, you’re ability to have a true one-on-one relationship with them decreases significantly. This is not to say that you should attempt to limit your readership to 150 readers, turning people away when that number is reached. What it means is that if you want to maximize your personal influence you would focus on establishing strong bonds and deep interaction with at most 150 readers. Now consider what would happen if each of these 150 readers read and thought about what you wrote on your blog for five minutes every day. Five minutes may seem insignificant but it has an exponential effect: with only 5 minutes every day, six days a week, every month, you will have the reader’s attention for more than one entire day – 26 hours – every year. With only 150 consistent readers you will have gained the equivalent “mindspace” of one person for one entire day for almost five straight months. This is what I call the "5/150 Principle": capturing the mindspace of 150 people for 5 minutes can create an astounding opportunity for influence. The question then becomes how you will use the principle. Your audience is giving you two of their most precious possessions – their time and their attention. What are you doing with this gift? Are you using it to improve their life, influence their worldview, feed their mind? Or are you wasting it by giving them junk food, blather and trivia which provides a momentary amusement but has only a fleeting impact? What will this person gain in return for loaning you this treasure for 26 hours every year? While the 5/150 principle may be simple to understand, achieving it can much more difficult. Developing a core constituency of 150 dedicated readers will take a considerable investment of time and effort. And since most blog readers spend less than 90 seconds reading a post, you will have to find a way to get them to fill the other 210 seconds by engaging or thinking about what you’ve written. But consistently striving to apply this principle will have far more important impact than would chasing after the ephemeral attention span of a large blog reading audience. You’ll get to know your readers as people rather than as statistics. You’ll engage with them and sharpen your own thinking in the process. You’ll find that your readers shift from being a passive audience to a part of a thoughtful community. Mostly, though, you’re blogging will gain more of a purpose – and you’ll begin to understand what it truly means to be a successful blogger.