In this post, I've listed some of the most successful posts from some of the most successful blogs on the web*. The blogs are a random spread from the Technorati Top 100, and the posts are usually not recent - they've become evergreen content due to the quality, popularity and excellence of the work.
What I hope you'll take away from this list is inspiration on how to create content that meets the same standard, and hopefully achieve the same levels of success that these posts have had.
In most cases, the popularity of the posts was based on the list some blogger's provide on their site of "Most Popular Posts," in other cases, the popularity was determined by the count of most Diggs from digg.com on the blog in question.
Without further ado ...
Techcrunch.com
Web 2.0 & Technology Company News @TechCrunch
(Note: A few of the most popular stories on Digg for Techcrunch were about Digg itself, which would biase the results and so these have not been included)
The Huffington Post
Politics (originally) @huffingtonpost
| Most Popular Posts |
Why? |
| Tina Fey As Sarah Palin: Katie Couric SNL Skit (VIDEO) |
Unless you were living under a rock for all of 2008, you might have heard of some Alaskan named Sarah Palin. Add Tina Fey on SNL in a send up skit in Video format on the world's most popular political blog, and it doesn't get more link bait than that. |
| Palin Claimed Dinosaurs And People Coexisted |
More Palin link bait, this one aimed to deliver Democratic website traffic in droves |
| The Worst Sarah Palin Clip Yet |
And yet more Palin. It's worth noting only one of the Huff's top ten posts don't mention Palin or McCain (it mentions Obama). Lesson? Keep feeding your audience the stuff they love again, and again, and again. |
TMZ
Hollywood Entertainment @harveyevintmz
| Most Popular Posts |
Why? |
| Michael Jackson Dies |
Three of TMZ's top five are all covering the death of big celebrities (the death of Brittany Murphy being No. 8). These celebrities are all huge, but here's the key - death/died/dead is a power word in copywriting, which means it's going to attract a lot of eyeballs |
| Heath Ledger is Dead |
see above |
| Paris free = Justice fails |
Paris Hilton was major news before this story broke, and her incarceration was even bigger news. Add the controversy of her early release and the gods of linkbait will be pleased. |
| Patrick Swayze Dies |
see above |
| Bale Goes Nuts On The Set of Terminator Salvation |
This is a major scoop, pure and simple. A leaked audio recording of an A list actor losing it is pretty much as good as it gets. |
Mashable
Web 2.0 & Mobile @mashable
BoingBoing
Anything and Everything
LifeHacker
Self Improvement for Geeks @lifehacker
CopyBlogger
Copywriting for the Web @copyblogger
* This isn't in order of the top blogs on Technorati, nor does it include all of them. GizModo & Engadget cover very similar ground, as do Mashable and ReadWriteWeb, hence only one of each being included
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