Sometimes I'm surprised on how a blog post can become suddenly successful while others, even if potentially more interesting, stay buried in the archive of my blog.
One example for all is my recent post about Apple iPhone vs Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. In a couple of days, it received more than 3000 uniques views mainly coming from Google Search. Other similar posts, where I tried to compare two or more hot mobile phones, ended up performing similarly.
That being said, how to make a blog post successful and bring many visitors to it? And, secondly, how to make it so successful that it remains on top of your list of blog posts in terms of unique visits? Here are three simple tips.
1) Choose the title carefully. If you choose your title very close to the one you guess people will use while searching on Google, it's bingo time. For example, I verified that the format "X vs Y" for hot products of the moment is definitely a winning choice. My post "Apple iPhone vs Nokia N95" has been the daily most read post for many months and it's still in the daily top 10. Moreover, make sure you have the latest plugins to manage SEO installed. In my Wordpress installation I use "All in One Seo Plugin" and it's working very well, in particular for the so called "title tags".
2) Spread the word everywhere. Make sure that any social netowork you are subscribed to is notified as soon as your post is published. Make sure an automatic Tweet is posted as well as your Facebook status, for instance. Many people come to my blog by just clicking on the URL shown in my FB status. Sometimes this leads to a massive burst of visits but doesn't make your blog sticky. If you care about a certain post more than others, update your status on social networks like Twitter, Linkedin and Plaxo with a link to your post and every hour make sure to update your status with the same message… I can assure it brings an interesting amount of visits (taking for granted you have many contacts in those networks…).
3) Engage people who leave comments to your post. Starting a discussion about your post is always a very good way to keep the visitors' attention very high. In addition, try to involve people sending emails to a couple of key bloggers trying to make them refer to your post in their own blog posts.
Bonus - 4) Blog about something hot. In times when people are searching for specific information on Google (new hot products announcements etc.), make sure you blogged about that (if it fits with your blog subjects and guidelines, of course). It can quickly become a popular post and you couldn't ever imagine it could happen.
Labels: blogging