It also helps a lot, in my experience as both a reader and a writer, to have something unique or unusual to say. Most people do not and consequently don't get readers and often waste a lot of time in the process.

I'm admittedly in a somewhat unusual position, though, because I contribute to a blog about grant writing (http://www.seliger.com/blog) and basically no one else has anything useful or interesting to say about the topic. I exaggerate, but only slightly.

I don't know how well blogging works for others, but I do feel like I've seen a lot of people and companies with really lame blogs and I have to think, "Is that really doing anything for you?" I'd be curious to see anyone with data on this subject, especially because I'm not even real sure what "data" would look like in this case.