"You are cranky, it's been a long day, you need to vent," writes Mack Collier at The Viral Garden. "So you write a nice stress-relieving post to your blog. Totally out of character with what you normally write, but you need the release." Of course, this is the post that seems to get everyone's attention—hundreds of followers retweet your link at Twitter, and your blog gets more comments than it typically receives in a two-week period.

"But here is where you have to be VERY careful," cautions Collier. "While it's great that you got a lot of RTs and a nice bump in traffic from that post, did it make you any money? Or if you are looking for more comments, or more email newsletter signups or whatever metric you track to judge your blog's success. Did that ranty post move that needle?"

Back in June 2009, Collier received a massive response when one of his blog posts railed against the idea that content is king in the blogosphere—that if you write it, they will come. Bloggers who started conversations, he argued, were the ones who actively engaged their audience.

The firestorm didn't translate into new business, however. "I never had a client tell me they contacted me because of that post," he says. And therein lies the importance of measuring how your blog actually attracts potential clients: While the occasional rant can shake things up, don't forsake your "dry" content if that's what actually convinces customers with pain points to pick up the phone.

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