We'ave seen them on the blogs of other marketing agencies and, most interestingly, on the blog of Chris Bailey. Bailey, a recent business school graduate, has included both an estimated reading time and a key takeaway right underneath the headline of his blog post! 

Bailey passed up on a few job offers to study the art of getting things done. His website, A Year of Productivity, documents his experiments in efficiency, so it's no surprise that he's putting time estimators on all of his posts. After all, in our networked world, time is a huge commodity.

In that regards, a reading time estimator shows that you're respecting your web visitor's time. However, they also feel like a bit of a spoiler alert, like you're giving away your best information right away. Then again, don't you want your reader to have the best information right away? In that regard, time estimators and takeaway summaries are great for sharing excellent content right away.

However, if you're like us and you feel like time estimators have a too-functional focus, then you can show that you are respecting your reader's time with these blogging best practices:

• Keep your blog post skimmable by using bulletted lists (like this one!)
• Keep your blog to one topic per post
• Use lots of white space
• That's Lots
• Of
• White 
• Space
• Use bolded text to emphasize key points

And there you have it! What is your opinion on reading time estimators? Share your thoughts in the comments forum or interact with us on Twitter @inboxtweets.

Want to know more about blogging? Check out this post.

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