One of the major keys to blogging success is giving value, but sometimes, no matter how great your post is it still might not get the right attention. Using the right titles and writing your posts the right way can help you get far more results than you ever expect.
This post will be analyzing the top five posts on 4 of the most popular blogs in the world and will also be detailing what makes them popular.
Below are the blogs being analyzed:
1. Problogger.net
2. Copyblogger.com
3. Stevepavlina.com/blog
4. Dailyblogtips.com
1. The five most popular posts on problogger.net
How to Stay Focused and Avoid Distraction as a Blogger
7 Signs of an A-List Blogger in the Making
8 Habits of Highly Excellent Bloggers
4 Reasons to Add a Podcast to Your Blog
How I Conquered Being Undisciplined and Started Getting Things Done
2. The five most popular posts on copyblogger.com
The Two Most Important Words in Blogging
Why no one links to your best posts (and what to do about it)
Ernest Hemingway’s top 5 tips for writing well
How to Get 6,312 Subscribers to Your Business Blog in One Day
Do You Recognize These 10 Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking?
3. The five most popular posts on stevepavlina.com
10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job
How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes
How to Make Money From Your Blog
4. The five most popular posts on dailyblogtips.com
43 Web Design Mistakes You Should Avoid
28 Ways to Make Money with Your Website
101 Blog Tips I learned in 2006
Lessons Learned
If you take a clear look at the 20 articles listed above, you will discover that a large percentage of them have something in common, I will be analyzing them below.
1. List and How to Posts Works: You will notice that eleven of the twenty posts listed above are list posts.
List post does not necessarily mean one line posts, you can write a post about “10 things to do this or that” and explain each one of your points. List posts are posts that have a number attached to the title.
You will notice many of the above posts are list posts.
How to posts are also very effective; you will also notice that 6 of the above posts are how to posts. How to posts are really effective because it is in this mode that people search for information, many of the searches occurring are in the form: “How to…..”, If you could utilize this properly, you can get better results and more traffic to your blog.
If your how to post ranks well in the search engines then you can definitely begin to get more search engine traffic.
Having being blogging for sometimes, I also notice that list posts get a lot of traction and they can easily create controversy. List posts are also one of the easiest post type you can write and they have the potential to easily go viral.
2. Post Length: Many bloggers do complain that only long and lengthy posts are the popular ones but you will notice that this is not always true, even though a large percentage of these posts are long posts, many of them are not lengthy and you will come to the conclusion that it is not really the length of the posts that made them popular but other factors like the title and the quality of the post.
3. Is Quality Really Important: Many people will argue against the great “content is king”. In the case of the above posts, you will notice that the posts are not just popular because the blogs are big but all of the above posts are really great ones that have one purpose, which is to impact lives.
4. It is in the title: One of the most important things when writing blog posts is to have great titles. Your titles must be able to catch people’s attention and should also be able to arouse the desire to read the post.
It is the post people read hat they will share, no matter how great your post is, if it is not being read then it will not be shared. Writing great titles along with your great posts helps more people read your post which eventually results in more people sharing it.
The above are 4 basic lessons you can learn from the five most popular posts on some of the greatest blogs on the internet, I believe as you apply the lessons learned on your blogs you will begin to get great results.
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4 Pings on "How to Write Popular Posts That Get Traffic – Analysis of 5 Top Blogs"
26 Comments on "How to Write Popular Posts That Get Traffic – Analysis of 5 Top Blogs"
Great Post Onibalusi. Good points you raise above.
You are right. All of them have something in common, and that is List and How to Posts. It is amazing how they can get so popular.
How to posts always solve a problem, and people are always looking for solutions to their problems, so that might explain their popularity.
Kindest,
Nabeel
Hi Nabeel,
Yeah! Exactly. List and how to posts really work great – in the power of someone who knows how to use them.
Thanks so much for the nice comment,
-Onibalusi
Thanks Onibalusi for your analysis on these popular posts from the top blogs. I really get benefits from this article. You are so creative. You deserve to succeed in blogging.
Hi Kok,
Your comments are really encouraging.
Thanks so much for your nice words,
-Onibalusi
This is important information, lot’s of people start blogs in the wrong way but using your techniques they’ll be much more successful.
D
Exactly Debbie,
Thanks so much for the nice comment,
-Onibalusi
Lists and how to’s work great because these type of posts are meant directly for the readers in order to help them.
About the quality of the content, the top bloggers have created an authority for themselves and gained their readers’ trust. So it is taken for granted that their content will be of very high quality.
Exactly Sourav,
List and how to posts are always very effective.
Thanks a lot for the nice comment (and the RT and stumble).
-Onibalusi
I’m noticing this more and more. I’d also like to point out that How-Tos and List posts are great ways to setup the time so that the keyword phrase it’s targeting sounds natural.
Exactly Josiah,
Thanks a lot for the nice comment (and the RT),
-Onibalusi
Really a wonderful blog and congrats your blog listed on top 10 list of bbrain on blogengage. Looking forward more good blogs from you pal.
Hi Thiru,
Yeah! Thanks so much for your nice comment, I really appreciate it.
-Onibalusi
hey oni, kudos and thank you for actually taking the time to provide us with such analysis.
Practically, i am trying to work my post to such level. Most importantly i believe is giving value to your readers. Instead of rambling through typical how to’s that is widely available online, provide them as you mentioned real ‘life’ impact post. something that not easily found online but you have successfully written it.
your readers will thank you for that by staying as a loyal reader and potentially happy customers. =)
cheers
Exactly Febap!
You are absolutely right.
Even though this content type works, the best thing is to have your own unique spin on them and not just copy another person.
Thanks a lot for the nice comment,
-Onibalusi
Agree that you can write as many posts as you can but how to write a popular post is big challenge for any bloggers even high profile ones. Those listed blogs are big themselves with high traffic then any posts could become popular even its quality is at low level
Title plays an important role as readers can only see it in search engine, so try to make it as much informative as possible.
P/S: I am confused a bit as you listed only 4 blogs but the title you mention “Analysis of 5 Top Blogs” means 5 blogs. Did I missed any single words or you used slang?
Hi Tinh,
Yeah! You are absolutely right. It is easier for blog posts on those blogs to become popular because they get a lot of traffic.
Concerning the title, that was a mistake.
Thanks so much for the nice comment,
-Onibalusi
I stumbled on to your site today for the first time. You made very good points indeed. I really agree with everything you are saying about traffic. Excellent Post Onibalusi!!
Really great Derek,
I am glad you did and I hope to see you more regularly here.
Thanks so much for the nice comment,
-Onibalusi
Don’t you think post promotion has a lot to do with the popularity of a post too?
Hi TJ,
It surely does but the results you will get will depend on the post, my most popular post was what I never promoted and it has been viewed over 1000 times now – what will you say about that?
You might promote and you might not but if you have the right post then your audience is enough to do the work.
What do you think?
Yea, if you’ve got something great to say, the word will probably spread. I guess I was just looking at it from the perspective of a newer blogger that doesn’t have much of a following yet. It seems like newer bloggers have to promote more, and maybe once you have a solid fan-base, that would be enough to post it and forget it. Thanks for the reply!
Sure TJ,
I get thousands of visitors every week so I have some audience to give my articles a push.
I will be releasing a killer article on how to get tons of free traffic to your blog soon – stay tuned, it probably will be my next article on this blog.
Are you subscribed yet.
Thanks so much for commenting,
-Onibalusi
Onibalusi,
Your analysis and insight from the top blogs and their most popular posts really showed by the examples how important our titles are and some great ideas we can use to increase our traffic. Defiantly putting this post in my delicious list.
Make it a great day.
Dennis
Lead, Follow and Share!
Hello Onibalusi,
This is a great analysis. I indeed can attest that how-to, top 10, and posts that gives answers and solutions are the ones that get people’s attentions. I can notice that because those kinds of posts in my blog are the ones that are stumbled by Stumblers.
nice post.. this article is good for the blogger.. I give you one point on that avoid the spelling mistakes, after complete your blog recheck it.
dailyblogtips popular posts is 28 ways to make money.so people searching for money resources.i think correct or not