If you look closely at some of the top blogs in the world that have emerged over the last 5 years it is interesting to see what has made them so successful so I thought I would look at 
what has made Huffington Post the success that it is today.
Huffington Post is a blog that was started by Arianna Huffington as a left- leaning blog and now has 20 vertical areas including religion to technology and it is about to add travel. It is interesting to note that they have just hired a technology industry veteran (not a traditional media publisher) Greg Coleman as their their president and and chief revenue officer who has previously worked for Yahoo and AOL.
Some of the numbers for Huffington Post to provide some perspective from its entry 5 years ago to its current success.
- Over 50 million page hits and more than 12 million unique vistors in May according to Compete.com.
- Moderates 3 million comments a month using 30 moderators
- 50 Editors
- 21 Verticals
So what are some of the secrets behind the success of Huffington Post?
1. Passion
Arianna Huffington revealed at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York that the secret to success is ‘Passion’ and the “obsessive compulsive nature of the web” is what first attracted to her to blogging and the ability for people to make a difference on the Internet by just pure persistentence and passion.
2. Social Media
They use social media and SEO (search engine optimization) tools to spread and share content virally fast and global. Each editor has SEO tools to optimize the content and social media tools right at their desks so they can connect their content to social media channels via Facebook connect or Twitter. The blog also allows readers to easily share the content with their followers and friends
3. Experiment Fast and Often
They can do this online and fast as they try different ways to grow the business from piloting different verticals and experimenting with different ways to ways to share the content on social media. In other words fail fast, cheap and often.
4. Focus On Powerful Niche’s
Huffington Post developed a focus on powerful emotive niche’s that provided a large enough audience to attract traffic. As well as politics Arianna started with entertainment, media, living and style.
5. Create Content Cost Efficiently
It is believed that the Huffington Post provides a platform for for 2,000 bloggers both known and unknown that she doesn’t have to have them on the weekly payroll
6. Source Resources
A venture capital company (Softbank Capital) invested $5 million into the blog site in Agust 2006.
7. Develop Powerful Partnerships and Networks
The Huffington Post has forged powerful partnerships with other big names in content areas such as Rolling Stone, Variety and Yahoo and has had influential politicians and celebrities contribute to the blog such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Madonna
So what else has made Huffington Post one of the largest and most powerful blogs on the planet?