Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted — One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip? — Eminem

I can’t believe I’m quoting Eminem either, but the song delivers a powerful message: “What if you only have one shot, or one opportunity to seize the moment?”

Guess what?
That’s usually how it works…

– In a television commercial, we’re told, the sale is made or lost in the first three of four seconds.

– In a print ad, tests have shown that 75 percent of the buying decision is made based on the headline alone.

– In a sales presentation, data has shown that, the sale is made or lost in the first three minutes.

So what about blogging?

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The 80/20 Rule

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) states that, in many cases, 80% of the effects comes from 20% of the causes. The Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80% of the income in Italy was received by 20% of the Italian population. The assumption is that most of the results in any situation are determined by a small number of causes.

Take some time this week to see if this holds true for you. In the activities that you do, does the minority (around 20 percent) account for the majority (around 80 percent) of your outputs.

I see this all the time in my life.

I often find myself teaching the Sunday school lesson at our church along with 4 or 5 other guys. Week after week the same group of guys step up to teach the class because out of around 30+ people they are the only ones to volunteer.

I remember as a kid playing soccer one of my coaches said that in a 90 minute soccer game the combined amount of time that you will actually touch the ball is less than 2 minutes… “so don’t screw it up son”.

Even at work, I’m willing to bet that my best work would make up a small chunk of time, say an hour, maybe two. It’s not to say that the other six hours are wasted, but they are spent in less productive ways.

This blog is no exception. This blog, like any other blog I’m sure, receives the majority of its comments from a select few. These precious few take the time to comment on most of the posts that we spend hours creating. And so today we thank them!

Thank you to ALL who have taken the time to comment. It means the world to us. We hope that you will continue to do so.

And an extra special thanks to our top 5 commenters - THANK YOU!

• TOMAS
• Jelena
• John
• DotNetNuke
• Brendon Kozlowski

Have you ever watched the show Miami Ink?

I’m a big fan.

Each week the show takes you into the life of someone who’s come to the Miami shop to get a tattoo. I love watching the tattoo artists work up a tattoo and then apply it to the canvas — the person’s body. But, perhaps even more interesting than the tattoos are the people that receive them. Each person provides a little snapshot of their life and why they’ve come to want the tattoo and what it means to them.

Tattoos are as varied as the people that get them.

Not only is each tattoo different, but the reasons behind each tattoo differ from person to person. A look at “Why people get Tattoos?” from Yahoo Answers reveals:

“People get tattoos for millions of reasons, mostly they mark an occasion, an emotion or a period of life.”

“People often feel the need to decorate their body as a way to keep track of events or state their preference for one activity or another.”

Is it me or does a tattoo sound strangely similar to a blog?

A blog is an expression of who you are. It’s a lasting impression on the web of your thoughts and opinions. And blogs, like tattoos, are as varied as the people behind them.

I know that this blog is a direct reflection of who I am. Start with the design — it’s very symmetrical. I can’t really articulate why I like symmetry as much as I do, but I do. I guess it’s like art — you just like what you like. As for the colors, well they come from a certain Big Ten school of which I am a fan. Then there’s the blog’s topics: web-design, web-development, web-promotion and just about anything else web-related. Most people will tell you that you need to pick a niche and become an authority in that given niche. That’s typically sound advice, but you know what — that’s just not me — I am a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none type guy; so I didn’t want to limit myself to a single topic. To thine own self be true has to be more important than picking a niche, right? Lastly, there’s the way in which this blog is run — by a team. I am a big believer in being part of a community. But, I will talk about that in a future post…

What does your blog say about you?

Free Tattoo Designs Find free tattoo designs

Today is the 3rd annual BlogDay and Search-This is happy to partake.

What is BlogDay?

BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors.

With the goal in mind, on this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. This way, all blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs.

So without further delay here are the lucky 5 blogs we at Search-This would like to share with you.

• Think Swedish
  Ever seen a blog done entirely in Flash? Well you have now! Only a company like FI could pull off such a thing. This blog talks about interactive design, Flash, ActionScript, Flex, AIR and just about any other Adobe product. If nothing else, check out their Design Tips.
• BrainFuel
  BrainFuel is like a tabloid magazine — It’s just fun and easy to read with quick blips of information. It’s refreshing to read and doesn’t take a lot of energy; like if you read Time or National Geographic magazine a lot and then picked up a People magazine. So if after reading Copyblogger and Pro Blogger you find yourself wanting a nice place to veg out, try BrainFuel.
• Community Spark
  This website is relevant for anyone who runs a community, whether it’s a traditional forum type of community or someone who sees their blog as a community. I discovered this blog about a month ago and immediately subscribed and it is a blog I look forward to reading and I actually SEEK OUT updates. The author has a great writing style!
• Kirupa’s Blog
  I’ve been a fan of Kirupa’s for several years now. I believe his forum is the best Flash forum on the web. But, if you’re not into Flash, no worries because Kirupa is an accomplished programmer too and he does a great job explaining stuff — just try this article, Intro to OOP in C#: Inheritance and you’ll get a feel of his writing style. I must admit, I do need to spend more time at his blog too.
• Jayson Knight
  Need your Windows or ASP.Net fix, visit Jayson’s blog. Jayson is an experienced .Net programmer who talks about the latest news in the Microsoft world. He is a Community server MVP so you can regularly see him give info on the great community software as well as show his own code clips. In addition, Jayson occasionally shares some personal stories to show that he is human after all!

Hope you guys like those blogs! And to all the bloggers we chose, great job and keep up the good blogging. Until next year…

Our friend Chris Garrett has issued us a challenge. He would like me to ask you, the Search-This audience, what you think this blog is about!

Chris makes the point that no matter what we say this blog is about or how it’s defined in the About section, it’s really you, our readers, that will determine what this blog is all about.

So what do you say?

You’re going to tell your friends about Search-This over the weekend, what are you going to tell them? Oh, and while you’re at it, you are going to link to Search-This and tell your friends to do that too! Just trying my Jedi mind trick powers out there!

• Does your blog produce the results you desire?
• Do you have questions about monetizing your blog?
• Would you like others to critique your blog?
• Would you like to join a community of other bloggers to talk about all aspects of blogging?

Check out the new forum The Blog Experiment — run by bloggers for bloggers.

While perusing a forum one of the threads asked, “Is your blog profitable?”

I decided to make it a late night and give this question some more thought…

Search-This Cost to Benefit Analysis

• $6.96 per month for web hosting.
• $50 per month for marketing and promotion cost.
• $56,250 a year for time invested - say 15 hours a week with 50 weeks in a year (-2 for some vacation, come on) at $75 an hour.

BUT!

Time spent making new friends and helping others become better webmasters - PRICELESS!

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If you would like to learn more about blogging and connect with other bloggers, be sure to checkout the new Blog Experiment Forums. Now is a good time to join and introduce yourself because it’s still the grand opening!