10 Tips to Write Your Most Popular

One popular post can bring your more traffic and links than a month’s
worth of your usual content.
In this post, I want to set you a challenge with the potential to launch
your blog into the stratosphere.
Make the next post you write your most popular post ever.
The following ten tips form my key advice for tackling this task. I
used all of them when hitting the Digg front page for the first time.
There’s no blueprint you can follow to write an incredibly popular
post, but you won’t have a chance unless you try. I’m confident these
tips will give you a good shot at success.
1. Time is more important than talent. Work on something for eight
hours and you can bet it will be good. You don’t need to spend that
long, however (though that’s how long it took me to craft the first
post I wrote that hit the Digg front page). More time means you can
refine, format and fill your post with plenty of value. Take the time
to really craft your content. It will show in the finished product.
2. Use your best idea. A post will never become wildly popular unless
it fulfills a need, and does so emphatically. What’s something your
niche wants but hasn’t got yet? Can you assemble a whole lot of
really awesome (targeted) resources in one place? The more your
posts helps people, the better it will do.
3. Use formatting to your advantage. These days, social media is key
when it comes to launching your posts into the stratosphere. Social
media users are notoriously spoiled for choice, however. Use
formatting to emphasize the best aspects of your post. Hone in on
your funniest lines, your most profound bits of advice, your best
resources. Make them stand out.
4. Brainstorm headlines. There are probably one or two bloggers
who’ve completely mastered the art of writing headlines for social
media (you’ll know who they are). The rest of us haven’t been
blessed with such skills. When you see a great headline, chances are
it’s option #12 of a dozen choices. Few of us can think of a great
headline straight away. Spend ten minutes brainstorming and you’re
bound to stumble across something that works. A weak headline will
cripple your post’s chances of success. It’s essential that you put a lot
of work into getting it right.
5. Invest plenty of value in your post. Ever bookmarked or voted for
something without completely reading it? We’ve all done it. It’s
because of the ‘Wow’ factor — the presence of enough promised
value in one place gets the reader enthusiastic about the post straight
away. Instead of 5 tips, why not share 50? Instead of 9 resources, why
not 40 or more?
7. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If your post looks good, it will
draw readers in. Take the time to add images, thumbnails and
formatting to what you create. Make your post a visual feast. With so
much web content presented in a bland way, your post is guaranteed
to stand out.
8. Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Readers will skip your
waffly introduction. You can say the same in less words, particularly
when you’re writing for an impatient reader: someone who wants to
get straight into your tips/resources/opinions. Use your introduction
to highlight why the reader should stick with your post. There’s a
reason my post introductions mainly consist of: “In this post, I’m
going to do this, this and that.” It’s what people really want to know:
what am I getting in exchange for my attention?
9. Send messages with links. The best way to get a blogger to
investigate your blog is by linking to them. We’ve got a natural desire
to know what’s being said about us. If your post becomes really
popular, each link inside it should send enough traffic outwards to be
worth investigating. Be generous with your outbound links when
writing your most popular post. It gives other bloggers an incentive to
link to you, because it’s ultimately more promotion for them.
10. Utilize your network. If you want people to Digg, Stumble or
Reddit your post, there’s no reason why you need to sit back with
fingers crossed and hope it happens. Ask them. Your loyal readers like
you. You entertain them, or teach them, or help them. If voting is a
simple matter of clicking a link they’ll be more than happy to do so.
Ask for votes in your post and email readers and social media
influencers. In most cases you will need to get the snowball rolling.
After that, others will do most of the work for you.
Bonus tip:
11. Examine what worked before. Study your most popular posts so
far. What’s common about them? Why did they work? What needs did
they address? In creating your most popular post, it’s important to
learn by example and build on what has worked for your blog in the
past. Another good idea is to analyze the most popular posts on other
blogs in your niche. Why did they work? What’s remarkable about
them? You can transfer those qualities over into what you write.