It's funny. When a person has been alive for four full years, we say they are "four" for the following 365 days. Yet when a business is alive for four full years, we celebrate their 5th year in business for the next year. Either way, today, this blog site enters it's 5th year of conversation.

Together we've seen many changes on site and off site. Relationships have been amplified (and some silenced). Tools and toys have come out rapid-fire, but talk has always preceded tech

To help mark that event, I thought I'd repost the five most important posts — not the most popular, or the most sarcastic, or the prettiest — but the five most important posts within these pages.  Hope they help. Here's to five more years (thanks for being a major part of whatever success the site/message/conversation has had):

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Blog Posting: Give 'em Eye Rest

We're scanners. Our eyes move fast and furious trying to capture all we
can in a short amount of time.  Just as the best road trips have rest
stops along the way, the best blog posts have eye rests along the way.

Give your audience one (or more) eye rest stops in your blog posts.

• Images – I always encourage placing the image to the
  right. Why?  We read left-to-right. Unless the image IS the story, let
  it be an eye rest. It will enhance – and maybe even compel more
  readership.
• Bold Text – As scanners, we're flying through text. Especially with longer paragraphs, publish a money quote in bold text.
• Hyperlinks – Hyperlinks are valuable to everyone involved, and the value for your reader is twofold: 1) They can dig deeper into the subject and 2) the change in text is an eye rest
• Lists – Short bullet or numbered lists are always good for an eye rest.

Which article are you more likely to read and remember?

This one:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque
molestie neque nec ante. Pellentesque dui ipsum, porttitor vel,
placerat sollicitudin, venenatis ut, dui. Praesent erat arcu, molestie
sit amet, interdum in, nonummy pulvinar, nibh. Mauris imperdiet
condimentum nisi. Donec eu turpis non leo nonummy sollicitudin.
Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices
posuere cubilia Curae; Integer justo lorem, sodales sed, mollis at,
gravida viverra, diam. Donec nibh leo, scelerisque sed, cursus et,
venenatis scelerisque, erat.

Or this one:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque
molestie neque nec ante. Pellentesque dui ipsum, my money is on the second one, venenatis ut, dui. Praesent erat arcu, molestie
sit amet, interdum in, nonummy pulvinar, nibh.

• Mauris imperdiet
  condimentum nisi.
• Donec eu turpis non leo nonummy sollicitudin.
• Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices
  posuere cubilia

Curae; Integer justo lorem, sodales sed, mollis at,
gravida viverra, diam. Donec nibh leo, scelerisque sed, cursus et,
venenatis scelerisque, erat.

Give your readers an eye rest. They're more likely to remember what you wrote – and therefore spread your words.

Photo on Flickr by imadoofus123

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Purpose Driven Blogging

Before we begin blogging, I ask each person/company I work with to answer six questions:

• What are three main goals for your business?
• What are three business objectives for your blog?
• Who is your audience? (Prospects, Current Clients, Colleagues, Internal)
• Are you targeting a national or regional audience?
• How do you want your audience to respond?
• How much time are you willing to devote to the conversation?

These questions have given pause to some business leaders – and
that's a good thing.  Tonight, I'm going to start giving the following
two posts as handouts (after I get permission from the authors):

1. Kami Huyse provides The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Blogging. Great Purpose Statement, Kami!
2. Martin Gordon elaborates on Steve Rubel's 4 P's of Blog Marketing
   - and here's why the elaboration works. I still run into old school
   marketers who are looking at the traditional 4 P's. Combining Steve's
   outline and Martin's elaboration, there may be less of a battle.

If you're trying to convince your company to being blogging, grab these posts.

One other note: Both Kami and Martin included a comment of
mine within their posts. That's how I found them. That said, this isn't
just a reciprocal posting – their items are keepers.

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Mingle With Your Audience

In Get Out From Behind the Counter, we talked about eliminating barriers from our customers in an offline setting.

As business bloggers, it may be more of "Get Down Off the Pedestal", remembering to get out into the audience once in awhile. Off the stage, into the audience.

In a recent workshop, while I was in front of the group, the mood was a bit…tense (Technology Blinders?).
We came to the point of building a quick blog site. I went into the
audience so we were all looking from the same view. What happened?

The mood quickly changed.  We were all on equal ground.  Just as it should be.

So get out from behind the counter, get off the pedestal, mingle with your readers. They won't bite.