The typical blog post is written, shared, indexed, and quickly forgotten to be replaced by newer blog posts about the same topic or by the same author.
You can cross your fingers all you want in the hopes your best-written piece is shared by more people or indexed by more search engines than in the past, but crossing fingers will not boost a blog post’s value if nobody else believes there is value. For the same reason a video creator can not gauge how many people will view a video before it is created, a blogger can not predict the popularity of a post. While there are ways to resurrect and recycle the majority of old blog posts, there are also the few that survive the above tests and remain actively visited because of a high search engine index rate or limited online information.
Take a look at my most popular blog post article of 2009, for instance, wherein I share screenshots explaining how I hacked a popular Facebook game. As of today, my post on the Bejeweled Blitz game has been shared 59 times on Facebook and 3 times on Twitter, not to mention being the recipient of 23 comments.
The popularity of a blog post goes beyond comments and shares, though; you must also remember the ubiquitous Google, let alone other search engines. Based on a myriad of reasons known collectively as Google Page Rank, if a blog post is viewed so many times and commented and linked to so many more times, Google considers the information timely and valuable — and will continue to rank it high in a keyword’s results page until nobody else clicks on it or comments on it. Since I published the article in July 2009, it’s seen 1-2 comments every month. Google likes it.
Querying a Google Analytics report (that excludes my own visits) on the most popular content viewed between January 18, 2009 and January 19, 2010, the Bejeweled Blitz article is most popular, with 91,018 pageviews across 70,662 unique visitors. In comparison, here’s an image of my top 5 viewed articles over the past year:
Over 95% of those 70,662 visitors entered the page directly from a search engine or a referral link, with Google responsible for 60,869 unique visits. People typed a combination of 9,175 keywords to reach the page. Evident from over a dozen unique visits to the page while I typed this retrospective article, Google continues to share its value with you and your Facebook peers.
I challenge you to write your next blog post from the perspective you are the Internet Newspaper. Write succinctly but clearly. Share a fact, a tidbit, or an image that nobody has seen before — but that everybody wants to see. Think to the future, but write for the present. Most of all, be yourself and write like the passionate scribe you decided to be when you created your first post. Don’t worry about comments or shares. Don’t worry about page rank. When you reach the gold nugget, savor the moment and share with all of us your tips for success.
I don’t know why the Facebook article remains popular. I don’t know why people still view it, for there are surely comparable articles online. I have a hunch, though, for its success, and that is because I likely wrote what I wrote before everyone else wrote what they wrote; and in Google’s eyes, original ideas mean something.
About Ari Herzog
You’re on fire, Ari!
I believe at least 2/3 of what I’ve written has long term value, more so before I started building traffic (which is time consuming).
Since I haven’t been at it very long, it remains to be seen whether I’m right or wrong. I have less than 30,000 total hits over 12 months. And nothing that went even remotely viral.
.-= New from Dave Doolin @ Website In A Weekend: Blogging Katamari Style (I’m gonna roll you up!) =-.
Thanks, Dave. You realize there is a difference between being viral vs popular, right? I’d call the Facebook hack post popular, but not viral. I don’t think people are sharing it with each other, wall posting aside, which would imply a virus.
I was just going to tweet you real fast and say just that Your On Fire
Look please in the future refrain from writing and thinking about posts like this
this is way to close to unlocking the code
Thanks LOL
Scanned over your last few posts Nice work
.-= New from John Sullivan: Hey President Barack Obama stop thinking we’re stupid =-.
Sorry, no can do, John. I’m about openness and breaking down those walls. I won’t give away all the secrets, for someone’s gotta get paid, but sharing the WHY over the HOW is important.
This is very interesting. I’ve been kind of amazed at some of my old posts and how they continue to get noticed even though I think they don’t really fit the mold of a timeless post. You point out some good thoughts!
.-= New from Brandon Cox: One Cool Way to Grab My Attention =-.
Got some examples of your timeless old posts, Brandon?
Your stats are another evidence that games.. and cheats… are way popular today. But I just don’t get it – why having 50+ facebook shares there are only several tweets of that post?
Do you have that strong facebook audience?
When you consider the dominant readers of that post are people finding it from Google, they are then sharing it on their FB walls. If it was an article about Twitter — such as this case study — there’d be a lower FB share count and a higher TW count.
I have a few Linux Posts, which describe how to make it more accessible, that have had a similar sort of long term success. It really is a nice feeling to look back and see something you wrote a few years ago still going strong.
I think you are right about one of the main factors of your success being that you were one of the first reporters on the Facebook thing(cool post btw.) They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but this doesn’t really hold true on the Internet. Pretty much as soon as you post something, if it is even remotely interesting or original, you will have a lot of people trying to ride your coat tails…
Care to share some of those Linux posts and get some backlinks in the process?
Good points mentioned, I agree blogs must demonstrate your passion on your topic
Thanks for chiming in. What’s your topical passion?
Well, when I go to Google and type “hacking be” the top suggestion is “hacking bejeweled blitz” and your article is #1. The next suggestion is “hacking bejeweled blitz on facebook” and your article is #2. “Hack bejeweled” gets 2,400 searches per month, and your article is #1 for that term. The best one though is “bejeweled blitz” which gets 40,000+ searches per month, and your article is #3. So keyword value wise, your article is gold! Congrats!
Thanks for the research, Kiki.
Twitter Comment
Good article on search optimization of your blog: [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Getting relevant and interesting content for viewers can prove challenging yet it if it is a good post it can age well and garner rank and traffic for your site. Great insight. I’ll be back for sure:)
It has been refreshing reading your post since it describes very well how I when I write a post or an article: I hope it can be meaningful and popular, but I will never know until I am done and it is out there. And even if one single person likes it and finds it interesting, it was worth writing it. And only by writing constantly with a good heart and a good pen (hopefully) I will eventually hit what you call the gold nugget.
You nailed the takeaway with that one person analogy. All it takes is one person to be a fan of a company even if the person never buys any product, for that person knows other people. That’s why companies should notice the prospects as much as the customers.
Great post Ari, I think that the authority of the blog has huge significance as to long term ranking, especially with Google. If a blog’s authority remains, those old posts will rank for years to come and create ongoing long term traffic.
Also the popularity of a niche plays a role, if you do the requisite keyword research for posts then you can ensure that your content sits in the best possible place in SE’s, many just title their articles with random titles and therefore they are seldom found.
Great points for folks who write for search engines and keywords. Me, I write for you.
This is one of the reasons I’m launching the new blog blank; all the posts are there, just in draft mode.
I have several perennial posts which browsers visit again and again. They are a blogger’s gold. I wish I knew the exact formula because some of my ‘great’ posts fizzled pretty quick. I suspect it’s triggering the right search words, a niche topic, a topic that everyone is wondering about…
I like this post, Ari. It seems a bit surprising to me that a Facebook game hack turned out to be so popular, but you never know what will be popular sometimes.
Oh, and belated congratulations on being elected councillor!
Thanks, Mark.
It’s kind of funny that so many people want to hack bejeweled. I guess it just goes to show that you really can’t anticipate what people are going to be interested in.
When you wrote that post did you have ANY clue how popular it would get?
I had an idea it would be popular for a few weeks…
I have a few thoughts on this.
Conventional wisdom is that you look at those stats and decide that you should write more of those types of articles.
This is especially true when you start out and want to build a community. Or raise your page rank.
Sometimes we no something or have an opinion on something, write about it, and really don’t want to continue writing about it.
This appears to be the case with your most popular articles. You aren’t writing a game site..
Does this mean that conventional wisdom may be flawed..
My other thought is that you suggest that we “Share a fact, a tidbit, or an image that nobody has seen before” which sounds like a great idea but then you go and spoil it with ” — but that everybody wants to see.”
That is far to much pressure to put on us..
First I thought ,cool. I’ll take a picture of a gas pump where I live. No one has seen that before.
And then my dream was crushed when I found out people have to want to see the picture..
Other than that I liked your article..
If people didn’t want to see your picture of a gas pump, there wouldn’t be photo sharing sites like Flickr.
I was faced with this once, where I wrote a post that got 4x the traffic as any other. I decided to capitalize on that and write more articles on that topic, and it paid off BIG!
.-= New from Keith@Need Information: Why Blog For Business =-.
My most popular blog post is one I wrote on a regional McDonald’s coffee commercial. I didn’t even think it to be a particularly good post, but thanks to Google, it gets hits daily, even many months later (and even a few comments now and then). People see the commercial and then go searching trying to find it. Somehow my post is one of the first results. It’s interesting, but also in a way discouraging – some of what I think are my best posts are those that seem to languish in pageviews and fall flat. Neither popular nor viral.
Got some examples of older posts you’d like to breathe life into? Find a way to incorporate a link to them in your next comments on different blogs.
Interesting. I didn’t know/think that the number of comments a blogpost had affected the importance Google assigns to it. Do you know if this is definitely true? I’d think that you rank high for that keyword because your post title matches what people are searching for.. and maybe you have some links to that post out there too. Then again, you probably know more about SEO than myself. I’m definitely a newbie. Interesting post!
From the perspective of backlinks, comments weigh into the metric. For instance, if someone from CNN linked to your blog with some keyword context, then a search engine would notice the context, index it, and track how often people click and visit your blog from it. If you then comment on CNN’s blog, a relationship is formed.
Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for replying!
.-= New from Josh@RV Blue Book: Why a Good RV Mattress Will Save Your Health and Sanity =-.
Also remember that all comments are more unique content for Google to snack on…they enjoy that.
.-= New from Dennis Edell: Blog Move Is Imminent ! I’m Looking For Launch Partners… =-.
I have written over 400 blog p0sts over the past 5 years, and yet the single biggest traffic generator to my site has been a random blog post I did two years ago about Gerard Butler dealing with fangirls from two years ago. I think the post was linked on a fan site, but now I think it has resulted in a prominent listing in Google Images search for Gerard Butler. The only problem is I don’t really blog that extensively about Gerard Butler (nor do I want to), which means most of that traffic gets bounced.
Could be worse, I supposed
.-= New from Tynan: Not a bad gig after graduation for Nathan Jackson =-.
I totally agree with you here but this leaves me with on burning question How often should a blogger writes a new post? this is my first time here and i must say i admire your writing style thanks for sharing
.-= New from lawmacs: 5 Link Building Tips =-.
How often should a novelist write a new book? I don’t know nor does anyone but the novelist. Same answer with blogs. If you want to write one blog post a day, 10 posts a day, or 10 posts a year, the answer is completely up to you. The only caveat to keep in mind is your readers may prefer a set frequency than changing frequencies. So whatever frequency you decide, stick to it.
There art Dave Doolin. Hi if you see this.
Back to this post I gotta say WOW at the traffic stats in comparison to what I’ve ever seen and would love to know how people have regular commenters. Maybe you all know each other? LOL If you have any tips for me I’m always willing to hear and hopefully I will get this kind of viral activity soon although after experienceing my first yesterday after posting about Smarta, I’m hoping it is the first of many.
.-= New from Mark@1Blogger1: Smarta, A Great Network for Entrepreneurs and Businesses =-.
The best way to have regular commenters is to regularly comment on their blogs. Respect and reciprocity, ya know?
Yes! My best traffic source!
.-= New from Dennis Edell: The Time Has Come. The Deal Is Done. It’s Time To Move!! =-.
I have a few pass articles that are still popular. Do you close comments on pass articles or do you leave them open?
.-= New from Rose @ Rose DesRochers: How to Use Google Wonder Wheel =-.
I previously closed comments on articles older than 365 days, but currently allow commenting on everything.
Mine are all always open. Yes, spammers target older posts first hoping you don’t check them, but plenty of legit Googlers hit them too.
.-= New from Dennis Edell: The Time Has Come. The Deal Is Done. It’s Time To Move!! =-.
I don’t think you can really determine what blog posts will take off and rank highly. I have some really off the wall posts that still get comments after several years. Google likes these posts. Based on the content I would never have guessed they would have been so popular. You just never know.
.-= New from Matt McGuire @ Sacramento Photography: The new EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM =-.
This is great to read just before I set up my new blogs. I already have my focus which I have picked up from years of guiding and what a lot of people want to know about my subject. I want to make it more accessible for people who have not looked beyond the movie to the mythology and cultures behind but in a way it is easy for people to read. (Now I just have to get my blog working!)