As we draw closer to the end of the year I spent some time this week doing some reviewing of ProBlogger.
One of the things I looked at was to analyze popular posts. It got me wondering what type of posts were most popular on other blogs.
So here’s a reader question:
What Was Your Most Popular Post in 2007?
By ‘popular’ I’m thinking of posts that got a combination of traffic, comments and link love from other blogs. It’s up to you to define it as you wish.
I’ll share mine in an upcoming year in review post – but in the mean time I’d love to see yours. Feel free to leave a link, the title and tell us a little about the post and why it was successful.
My most popular post, highly trafficked post was while hosted on Blogger called “Top Ten Tips To Become A ProBlogger”. I had nearly a thousand hits to that post, only to discover the next day that anyone using Firefox was unable to read the dang post because of a template coding error. I pouted about that for days! I hate Blogger!
And now that I’ve moved my blogger blog to WordPress, I think the entire URL changed as well, ’cause all my comments from IE users disappeared. :(
My little 80s pages have picked up steam this year. I hope that 08 gives me the same climb in traffic. My best post for 80s Rewind was 80s Punk Fashion.
I have very interesting ‘top content.’
My post, A Comprehensive List of Design Showcases was my most popular. It got stumbled a few times and got linked to from a A Blog.
My second most popular post was A Few Components of ‘Good’ Web Design. It also got stumbled a few times and linked to from the same A Blog. But it was a few hundred views lower than the List of Design Showcases.
And then, surprisingly, my about page had the third most hits, and then my post The Quest for PageRank – How PR Works.
And surprisingly, my index page had the fifth most views.
My reason for success was getting links from an A Blog.
However, “The Quest for PageRank – How PR Works wasn’t ever linked to by an A Blog – I just got stumbled and linked to from a few smaller blogs.
I found the most eye opening part was my About page coming in third.
That just goes to show the power of the about page.
Most interesting…
I have an automotive blog, and by far the most popular post (in its thus far short life span) has been the post in which the Hyundai Genesis coupe was revealed.
http://www.driverslife.com/2007/11/14/la-auto-show-hyundai-genesis-coupe/
I got a lot of google search engine traffic and it was linked to on various forums and stuff. Unfortunately I didn’t get a lot of dialogue on the post, as there were only 7 comments left.
Still, I’m pretty sure that is the most feedback I’ve ever got on any of my posts to date.
A wee bit disheartening, I must say, but I’m trying to keep going. I know that ONE DAY I’ll have a steady reader base. Who knows, maybe I’ll even make enough money from ads to start paying for hosting costs!
Why mention just one, when you can mention 12! Talking about Google and Apple TV dominated my viewership this year, with Google-related content taking the top 3 spots for page views alone.
Google Dominates My 2007 Blog Statistics
http://www.louisgray.com/live/2007/12/google-dominates-my-2007-blog.html
I mentioned the internal link story above as it got the most high-profile discussion, external linkage, and comments.
My most popular post is one I just recently wrote about the top mac os x applications:
http://scribblesandwords.com/top-mac-os-x-applications-for-bringing-in-2008-with-productive-style/
My website is primarily a running web site, but the one article that nearly crashed my server had NOTHING to do with running!
Granted, it was a World Record in pull-ups attempt with a feature story and Video (everyone loves videos), and it was linked from the official World Record web site and several popular forums.
No question. By far the most popular blog post of 2007 for me was one called An IFPI / BPI Board Member Writes.
In a series of emails, Paul Birch of Revolver Records – and board member of the British equivalent of the RIAA as well as the International body that represents them – threatens legal action and a formal complaint to my employer, demands that I edit my blog to his liking, and insists that university academics always represent the views of the corporate record industry.
He then (remarkably) gives his permission to publish the exchange, which was much appreciated. An absolute gift of a blog post.
Crashed my server with the sheer volume of traffic (generating a series of nice little conspiracy theories), sent my comments and links absolutely through the roof, got Dugg and Boing-Boinged and everything else you could hope for – and pretty much tripled my regular ongoing readership as a result.
Merry Christmas, Paul…
Honestly, I had a lot of popular posts from Slyvisions.com. But the one that was really liked by my readers was this one:
10 Things To Do When You Have Nothing To Blog About
http://slyvisions.com/files/10-things-to-do-when-you-have-nothing-to-blog-about.php
http://thecodist.com/fiche/thecodist/article/all-i-need-to-know-to-be-a-better-programmer-i-learned-in-kindergarten
Got 40,000+ readers and continues to get at least 100 or so every week. Even the author of the original book liked it.
My most popular was
“Focus On Results, Avoid Workaholism – My 4 Simple Rules”
http://practicethis.com/2007/12/20/focus-on-results-avoid-workaholism-my-4-simple-rules/
Hi Darren and everybody, my most popular post this year, with 2154 Diggs, and, seven reviews at StumbleUpon, with more than 40 Stumbles, was
Hi Darren and everybody, my most popular post this year, with 2154 Diggs, and, seven reviews at StumbleUpon, with more than 40 Stumbles, was
Review of changes between Firfox 2 and Firefox 3
this one
BERLIN SHOPPING GUIDE ::: VINTAGE
http://pudri.blogspot.com/2007/12/berlin-shopping-guide-vintage.html
kind of saw that coming
I’m almost certain my most popular post was Top 21 Signs You Need a Break From SEO (2007 version). It was the second such post (I did one in 2006 which was also very popular) and I always make sure to link out to several popular SEO bloggers, which tends to encourage them linking back to me. :)
It’s also the #2 most popular post on Sphinn.com.
http://stilinberlin.blogspot.com/2007/08/aerobic-ii-2007-08-04.html
The my most popular post was about make money online at http://makemoneyonl.blogspot.com.
No doubt it was my:
5 Steps to Winning the Man of Your Dreams (with Lego illustrations!)
This was the most popular feature at my site this year, or any year. Good times.
http://thewvsr.com/adsvsreality.htm
Greetings All –
My most popular post was ‘The Ten Most Inspirational Bloggers of 2007’:
http://www.mytropicalescape.com/2007/12/16/the-ten-most-inspirational-bloggers-of-2007/
This post got stumbled by Leo, of Zen Habits, and Maki from DoshDosh, so it drew tremendous traffic. It was a great way to finish off 2007
My most popular post was, by far, on a device called Washlet. I wrote about it as a joke. It was StumbleUpon’d and got a nice bump in traffic. But if you use SU, you know the bump is very short usually. This one, however, exploded. It ended up getting over 14,000 hits, nearly 40% of my total page views for all posts. Crazy.
http://www.patricksays.net/2007/09/16/greatest-invention-ever/
By far, my most successful post since the start of my blog is:
Linux Is Not Y2K(38) Compliant!?
But of course, it was dugg! With over 243,000 hits and 1035 diggs, this really brought a LOT of traffic and comments to the site.
It seems it was a very hot topic on digg. This was very unexpected, I was just writing about what interested me, not what I thought others might be interested in. You can read the digg post and comments here:
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Linux_Is_Not_Y2K_38_Compliant
This post I made was one of the most popular, for two reasons:
1) People who didn’t understand it got depressed and upset
2) People who understood it fell in love with it. :D
http://www.urbanmonk.net/136/loneliness-the-beginning-of-romance/
I had two posts that were equally popular. Although neither helped me at all in regards to readership stats like feed count. I’ve hit a 2 month long plateau :(
5 Tips On How to Read the Bible the Right Way – My Way – This was a satire piece that brought out some praise and some crazy talk. Always great.
The Golden Compass and The Christian Whine – this one drew a whopping 39 comments, making it by far the most commented on post. It was controversial and went against the grain of the typical Christian rant against other people’s artwork.
It was also an experiment I did in Search Engine traffic. I wrote it about 3 weeks before the movie came out, and I got several thousands of visitors searching for The Golden Compass in regards to the boycotts.
This one made Sphinn’s frontpage: http://seoroi.com/search-engines/msn-search-share/
These others at SEOmoz will also be of interest to my fellow Pb readers:
5 Youmoz and Sphinn bloggers You MUST RSS
20 Top Sphinners You Should Know
My blog still feels like a relatively new affair, and true to form my most popular post was of the list variety – my Top Five Tips for Writing a Killer Bio
Interesting, because it far outdid my most personally satisfying post (The Appeal of an Acting Career) in terms of drawing traffic.
My most successful post written by me was How To Build Your Own Buzz about ways of promoting yourself for free.
I have few blogs and from those the most popular articles were as stated below.
Skiing: It seems people are interested in gear reviews
http://homeboyski.com/2007/10/15/volkl-0708-ski-review-series-part-i-volkl-katana
Astronomy: People seem to be interested in constellations
http://homeboyastronomy.com/2007/11/17/astronomy-observation-tips-what-constellations-can-be-seen-in-different-times
Headbanging: It seems Northern Kings is interesting for my readers.
http://metal-music-videos.com/2007/10/15/northern-kings-we-dont-need-another-hero-cover/
I was actually able to write a wonderful post about youtube downloading software that currently tops google serps for a bunch of youtube relatd searches.
http://muiomuio.net/programas-para-fazer-download-de-videos-do-youtube/
The post is written in Portuguese but it’s very easy to understand where to go from there :)
This post on no-cost, off-blog marketing that featured a round-up of top bloggers was a home run…in no small part because you joined in it…
How to build traffic without spending a dime
My most popular post, when comparing both of my blogs, is called “How to Stay in the Dream as Long As You Want”, at http://www.lucidblog.com/how-to-stay-in-the-dream-as-long-as-you-want/
I checked all-time content stats with Google Analytics, and this post came in #1 at 17,327 unique views, and 28,758 pageviews, with a P/V ratio of 1.66.
I particularly liked writing this post a lot, because it took me MONTHS to figure out how to prolong lucidity in the dream state.
One of my most popular blog posts is “Reshaing the Sexy Filipina Image”
http://aboutmyrecovery.com/2007/06/27/reshaping-the-sexy-filipina-image-filipino-women/
It became so popular that I got a new domain for it at http://filipinaimages.com . Not only did it become popular it helped achieve my gola.
My most popular post this year was a feature I began called Your Two Cents Thursday. The most popular post was about Tyler Perry’s new sitcom House of Payne”.
Why was it popular? I received news about the show very early on from a contact at TBS, I opened it up for discussion. Tyler Perry fans flocked to the blog to get info about the sitcom and chime in.
I’ve learned that for my blog using my publicist contacts help add more traffic. Thanks for reminding me about this feature. I had forgotten about Two Cents Thursday.
My best article, and thankfully my most popular, was The 10 Commandments of Mac Optimization at jasonswadley.com.
My favourite and most popular post for this year has to be 25 Pointers for Blogging Beginners. It took a bit of time to write it but the feedback received through comments and stumbles was great.
I was interviewed by Chris Garret a few months ago and he Stumbled the article. I had a week of my highest traffic ever.
The article was 10 Questions from a Wannabe Cigar Smoker.
By just about every indicator, mine was “A Beginner’s Guide to Getting More StumbleUpon Traffic” at http://moneypowerwisdom.com/a-beginners-guide-to-getting-more-stumbleupon-traffic/
All success
Dr.Mani
My most popular post included options for inexpensive but interesting banquet centerpieces: http://cindyae.blogspot.com/2007/08/centerpieces-limit-spending-increase.html
I write a blog for association staff; but quickly found many companies/people plan events and search for that info.
Cindy
http://cindyae.blogspot.com
Te iGoogle Teahouse Fox takes the cake. ^_^
http://journal.sarahcada.com/2007/06/igoogle-teahouse-ghost-captured.html
Oddly enough for me, I’m still riding the Apple iPhone wave. From when I thought it was expensive to getting a free unit from a reseller, it’s given me a new high. :P
http://www.dannyfoo.com/blog/apple-iphone/day-4-buy-the-apple-iphone-in-malaysia/
My most popular post for my local news/politics blog was a post about how police used cell phone records to destroy the alibi of a suspect.
On my celebrity blog, it was a post about a certain B-list celebrity reportedly being impregnated during the filming of her reality dating show. It also broke the record for number of comments.
I have two that has gotten a reasonable amount of traffic from Google.
8 Things to Do If You’re Alone This Christmas
http://independentkitten.com/christmas/
and
Feeling Naughty? Learn How to Make Patent Leather Look Classy
http://independentkitten.com/feeling-naughty-learn-how-to-make-patent-leather-look-classy/
‘10,000 kW Electrical Power Generation in Your Backyard’ was our most popular post of 2007. With oil prices the way they are, I can understand why this post was popular. It made front page on digg.com the day it was posted and spread like a virus.
http://www.gadgetgrid.com/2007/03/26/10000-kw-electrical-power-generation-in-your-backyard/
scooter
http://www.gadgetgrid.com
This one:
http://www.starfeeder.com/blog/archives/beautiful_night_elf_spotted/
An Asian girl dressed up as a Night Elf from World of WarCraft…
Got over 40,000 unique visitors to this one post alone in Nov, and still getting visits (
my most popular post was this http://livelymoney.blogspot.com/2007/12/top-5-stock-picks-in-ghetto.htmlI made it at he top of digg and got over 30,000 vistors
Sometimes I feel like having a “popular” post isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. My most popular for the year (linked on my name) was a post from almost 3 years ago. On the average, I delete at least 5 trackbacks per day. I’ve even thought about moving my main blog to a different domain, just so the new items will get seen.
I definitely don’t complain about the traffic, just about the fact that most people who see that post never actually subscribe or come back for anything else.
My most popular on the business blog was:
Adevertising, It’s How You Say It
It got noticed by a blogger I respect and she gave me a comment and a later link back.
My most popular on the main News for Moms blog was:
Multiple Recalls 12/21/07
I think it’s just the most popular because it’s my most recent toy recall summary and my blog got a link back from a popular mom blog.
Surprisingly it was a post with brief informations for the next season of tv show I blog about.
Since starting my blog November 8th of this year, by far my most popular post in terms of traffic, links, and comments, was ‘Why Does Fiction Fail on the Internet?’
http://max-bro.net/2007/11/26/why-does-fiction-fail-on-the-internet/
I think it was successful due to two main reasons:
1.) It was about something that doesn’t get talked about too often since fiction isn’t nearly as popular a genre as technology or blogging itself or other non-fiction related topics, and
2.) WordPress linked to it on their front page, which gave me a good number of initial hits that eventually built into a nice StumbleUpon wave and a few links from Delicious bookmarks and other blogs.
Posts on my site pretty regularly get thousands of hits, and dozens (occasionally hundreds) of comments, but a post I did about the appalling status of an Indian reservation community in my state did the best. I didn’t track how many hits it got, but it got nearly a thousand comments:
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/the_app/
That was a post I wrote when the controversy over my original post (published at the tail end of 2006) hit. The original post has nearly a thousand comments as well:
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/the_appalling_state_of_our_indian_reservations/
Those posts also got me banished from the Indian reservation in question for life, so I’m not sure if “popular” is the right word for them. “Infamous” is a better one, I think.