Everyone tells you to write great content. Content is king. Write, write ,write. Well… what exactly is great content? This is the question I wanted to find an answer.
I analyzed the 25 most popular posts on 5 of the top internet marketing blogs out there to see what makes a great post truly great (go viral) and how you can replicate that success.
Copyblogger
Five Grammatical Errors that Make You Look Dumb
Comments: 950, Likes: 7.4k , Tweets: 1802
5 Simple Ways to Open Your Blog Post With a Bang
Comments: 459, Likes: 624 , Tweets: 152
56 Ways to Market Your Business on Pinterest
Comments: 427, Likes: 2.8k , Tweets: 4357
The Inigo Montoya Guide to 27 Commonly Misused Words
Comments: 595, Likes: 6.1k , Tweets: 1137
The Mad Men Guide to Changing the World with Words
Comments: 159, Likes: 657 , Tweets: 1166
List posts across the board. If you want something to attract a ton of traffic, you can’t go wrong with a list post. List posts that teach you something (easy and simple) get tweets like crazy.
Quicksprout
101 Motivational Business Quotes
Comments: 254, Likes: 520, Tweets: 296
The Science of Instagram: How to Get More Followers and Likes
Comments: 89, Likes: 79, Tweets: 369
6 Reasons You Won’t Succeed
Comments: 263, Likes: 275, Tweets: 285
51 Creative Business Cards That Will Make You Look Twice
Comments: 590, Likes: 828, Tweets: 360
American Express Centurion: Once you go black, you never go back
Comments: 468, Likes: 224, Tweets: 27
Yet again list posts dominate the top 5. People love to share fun list posts as well, they don’t always have to be educational.
Also as you can see a personal story post is on the top 5 and it has the most comments from his regular readers. People love to read interesting things about you. Who would have thought? Not me.
Smart Passive Income
THE Backlinking Strategy That Works
Comments: 2049, Likes: 278, Tweets: 188
How to Create a Facebook Landing Page (HTML / iFrame Edition)
Comments: 553, Likes: 900, Tweets: 251
The Only 100 Words You Should Read Today
Comments: 539, Likes: 89, Tweets: 55
What Would YOU Like to Ask Tim Ferriss?
Comments: 412, Likes: 154, Tweets: 63
A Step Towards Ethical Link Building – What Happened and What Now?
Comments: 394, Likes: 149, Tweets: 138
Pat’s long a detailed how-to posts are the most popular. Also a very short motivational post has attracted a ton of attention. The length of the post is not always important. The message is important.
Think Traffic
21 Quick Actions You Can Do Today to Set Your Blog Up for Massive Success
Comments: 238, Likes: 762, Tweets: 643
Need Some Motivation Right Now? Read This IMMEDIATELY
Comments: 123, Likes: 1.7k, Tweets: 301
Write Epic Shit
Comments: 305, Likes: 200, Tweets: 341
Are You Making the Most Common Pricing Mistake?
Comments: 50, Likes: 427, Tweets: 876
17 Steps to Guarantee a Successful Guest Posting Campaign
Comments: 62, Likes: 8, Tweets: 105
Again two list posts and a motivational post. All around great posts that teach you something truly great. No fluff, everything is exceptional.
ViperChill
How to Really Build Backlinks and Dominate Google
Comments: 487, Likes: 127, Tweets: 169
WordPress SEO: The Only Guide You Need
Comments: 398, Likes: 179, Tweets: 295
The Future of Blogging: I Had to Tell You This
Comments: 388, Likes: 405, Tweets: 550
Get Hundreds of Links to Your Next Blog Post, Guaranteed
Comments: 239, Likes: 57, Tweets: 239
How to Build a Six-Figure Blog Without Anyone Knowing
Comments: 235, Likes: 146, Tweets: 298
Glenn writes really long and detailed tutorial posts that get a lot of eyeballs. Also his epic long posts about his thoughts and his views are amazing to read and people share them like crazy.
The Seven Types of Posts You Should Write Each Week
If you pick just one of these post types to write once a week you will drive mad traffic to your blog.
1. List Posts
One of the most popular posts on many of the blogs are list posts. These posts can be fun and don’t always have to be 100% related to your topic. They are fairly easy to write as well, which is a big bonus.
2. How to/Tutorial Posts
If you write a really helpful and long tutorial that teaches people something and fixes their problems then you just can’t go wrong with that.
3. Motivational Posts
Posts that shake you once in a while motivate the heck out of me, and apparently, a ton of more people. Sometimes you just need to hear the truth. Just stop procrastinating and start doing. I’m serious! Just pick one of those post types and start writing. NOW!
O.K You can finish this post, but after that – clickety-click time.
4. Case Study Posts
Did something awesome and want to share your findings? Awesome! I love case study posts.
5. Posts that explain your point of few and your thoughts
Since you are an expert in your field your rants mean a lot to people. You can be surprised how many people might share your point of few – or open their eyes (or make them angry)
6. Reader Participation Post
When you ask your readers to participate you are bound to get attention – specially if you give some kind of an incentive. Contests are another great way to get noticed.
7. Personal Posts
Write something about your self. Tell a story. Show your weaknesses. When people can relate to you, you will get readers for life. You are not just another blogger- you are someone they feel they know and have a connection with.
You already knew you had to write great content, now you know what kind of content you should actually write.
Get to writing!
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This is really cool. You have pointed out some best articles from problogger which are worth to read. Thank you.
You’re welcome Taswir!
Make sure to apply these post types in your writing as well.
I’m a huge fan of SmartPassiveIncome and ThinkTraffic, I’ve bookmarked nearly all of the articles you mentioned on your article. I actually found your site through SmartPassiveIncome.
You also put together an awesome list of post types, especially the how to tutorials. I’ve seen alot of those types of posts do really well and I particularly like motivational posts. Running your own site can get sort of…lonely and you need a kick in the pants every once in a while.
Good stuff, keep it up.
Hey Vesone!
Thanks a lot. I totally agree that sometimes when you have a bad day and you stumble on a motivational post it really gives you the push you need.
BTW best of luck with your site launch! Looks like an awesome project.
Great list Kris! A good strategy would be to test out all of them. You could write a post a day on each post style and see how they perform in general.
Thanks Miki,
Not a bad idea. Looking at other blogs, I can see that these post types perform extremely well, so I try to write at least a post a week from that list.
Quite smartly done!!! Its good to see your list of 5 of the top posts from 5 of the top Bloggers. 25 in one pack. Wow! .. And then I have got what your post intends to do. would follow for sure