Originally published @ Wordout.

It’s About Time

Writers have many reasons for what we do. We write, whoever we are, to inform, to entertain, to make others think, to cleanse our soul… the reasons are like the stars in the sky, uncountable. Regardless of the reasons, though, the challenge to succeed is always the same. A poet may want to open your emotions. A journalist may want to give you a certain knowledge. Commentary is written to make us ponder. Jokes are presented to make us laugh. In each form, the success of the work has its own challenges.

Blogging may have a unique challenge. With most other forms, the reader has accepted the conditions of reading and has ceased other activity in favor of the current reading. Each form has its requirement of time, and the reader allocates this time up front. Whether it’s a book, a story, a poem, a news article, even the comics, focus time is awarded up front, before beginning to read.

For most blogs, it doesn’t work this way. Blog readers seem to use a different way of allocating time. Scanning headlines in various readers, they may give the title less than a second of attention. If they are attracted within that initial glimpse, they may spend 10 seconds reading the 1st paragraph or two before deciding whether to actually read the rest of the piece.

Perhaps of all readers, blog readers are more acutely aware of the value of their attention. They know how valuable their time is to themselves. There might be hundreds of titles on a given day to choose from, and they know they will not choose them all. They also know that just because Joe Blogger wrote a killer piece yesterday doesn’t mean he will do another today, or ever. But they will probably at least look at his headlines.

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The Challenge Of Blogging

So the first challenge of blogging is getting the reader’s attention, and then keeping that reader interested. How important is it that thousands of people visit your site but not one stays longer than 10 seconds? There is no value in that for the reader or the blogger. I would rather have lower numbers of visitors who spend enough time to read something.

When I look at my Google and Feedburner stats the most important number I’m looking at is the time spent on site. Right now that averages out to a little under 4 minutes, and I think that’s pretty good. Most of the things I publish take about that long to read, or less. That tells me that people are reading this stuff. That tells me I’m not wasting my time.

So now, the question is how to get the reader’s attention and keep it, in less than 10 seconds. As any successful writer will tell you, there’s no real formula for it. But there are some components that are a necessity.

Write well and write often.
Don’t be too afraid to fail or succeed.
Be happy. Go Lucky.

That’s what my great-grandfather used to say.