With blogs becoming such a popular news source, New York Times's journalist Paul Boutin investigates how a blog can accumulate a large audience:

- Don't expect to get rich because viewers rarely click on the automatic ads on the blog. A blog that draws in 500 page views a day only makes about $45 a month. Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and blog blogmaverick.com, advises, "Don't go into blogging to make a living."
- Blog about topics you are passionate about, not what you think your audience wants.
- Put your personal life first. "The blog is best handled by inserting it into the small bits of free time that rest among the bigger chunks of your work," says Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee who posts to his blog instapundit.com.
- Post immediately so you get everything you want to say out and don't spend time trying to polish the prose. You can always go back and edit or add information.
- Be constant in posting so readers know when to expect new material, whether it be several times a day or once a week.
- Be constant in blog length and format.
- Link back to other bloggers, crediting them to photos or ideas you use. This is a good way to get them to link back to you which sends readers to your site and raises your site's ranks in search engines.
- Plug yourself by sending a note to a prominent blogger to draw attention to a post you wrote or comment to their post, including a link to your blog. Another way is to submit your blog posts to sites like Digg, Fark, and Boing Boing.
- Allow readers to post comments to raise live interaction and readership.

Boutin warns that if your blog does eventually become successful, you might have trouble doing your day job.

Source: The New York Times through I Want Media