Thursday, March 18, 2010

5 Types of Blog Posts for More Traffic

5 Types of Blog Posts for More Traffic



You never know whether you’re blog posts will bring you traffic. One thing you could say is that traffic is unpredictable. You can never pinpoint the exact reason why one of your posts brings more traffic than another one. However, you can see the “basic” reason why people like one article better than another. Over the constant research I did for a company, I found that five types of blog posts will generate more traffic than any others.

The best thing is that it doesn’t really matter what topics you choose to address. These types of blog posts will generate traffic, comments, linkbacks, and social media syndication for all topics. They continue to work over and over again even if the information has been written before. Don’t just write content, but write content in a way that brings traffic. Here are my five types of blog posts that will get you more traffic:

1. Numbered Post or Round-Up Post

A numbered Post and a round-up post are close to the same thing. They can also be known as list posts. This is because they typically contain a list of topics, ideas, sources, etc. Generally these are one of the easiest posts to write.

A lot of people do not use a numbered post but instead just list their ideas. However, they should always put a number of how many different ideas, topics, sources, etc. that is used in their posts. Why? Because people love these kind of blog posts. They love them for many different reasons and I have written a complete article about numbered posts.

You can see how popular they are by just looking at some of my blog posts. My most popular blog posts always have a number in the headline. For example, I wrote 15 Blogs All Bloggers Should Read and it became an instant hit.
2. The How to Post

This is also one of the more popular kinds of blog posts. Everyone seems to love to learn something that could benefit them especially if it is easy to replicate. I have recently been writing how to blog posts and many more people seem to come to my blog on the days I post those articles.

For example, I recently wrote an article called How to Build a Community on Your Blog. I went step-by-step and told people how they can build a community on their blog. The fact is, building a community is something a lot of us would like to do more of, but we don’t know how. I have had a lot of luck building communities on other blogs that I have started and I recently began to feel like this blog was going that way too. I thought I could pass my knowledge on to my readers. It is an article that benefits the reader so it brings traffic to your blog.
3. The Controversial Post

This is actually one of my favorite kind of posts and it will sure bring you loads of traffic. There are many different ways to be controversial when writing an article. Having a strong opinion on something is okay even if people do not agree with you. That is basically the point. When you get on topics such as is it professional or not to disclose your online earnings, tell people whether a link is an affiliate link or not, whether it’s okay to photoshop your feeds subscriber count, etc. you’re tapping into controversial topics.

Those are all very controversial topics and people seem to be drawn to them. There are controversial topics in every blog niche. If you are writing about the Constitution then I am sure you have a lot of controversy. You have abortion, gun rights, gay rights, etc. Everyone seems to have strong feelings about those which will make them read your article and they will likely put their two cents in by commenting.
4. The Motivational Post

The motivational Post is one of the most compelling types of posts to blog about. Getting your readers motivated or excited is much more powerful than a post that provides entertainment for the few minutes it took people to read the article. Even though telling people how much you have made blogging is controversial, it can still get people motivated to make money also. They are more likely to leave more excited than anything.

It is possible that visitors and readers that get motivated and excited from a blog post will return to your blog. That is what you want the most so why not do it. That is why it is still one of the most compelling types of blog post today.
5. The Hot Topic Post

Everyone seems to like reading about the latest hot topic. Lately it seems that the presidential election has taken over everything. It’s pretty much a guarantee that if you write about the presidential election on your blog that you will get traffic. It’s difficult remembering a time when the presidential election hasn’t been on the list of top searches (on blog searches).

The one thing you have to remember is to always relate it to your blog topic. You don’t want your readers and visitors to think that you have lost focus. There are many clever ways to implement the hot topics into your articles. If you are writing a post about dogs then use the headline, “What the presidential election has taught us about dogs?”.

Those are the five types of blog posts that will get you traffic. There are many other kind of blog posts went through my research for a company I worked for, I found that these five types of blog posts generated the most traffic. Like anything else in the blogging world, I’m sure some of these posts work better for a certain kinds of topics.