What blog posts bring in the most readers?

What blog posts bring in the most readers?

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Sheep - Photo courtest of http://www.flickr.com/photos/gi/

It is always interesting to see what brings readers to a blog so I thought I might share with you guys what blog posts have brought the most visitors into Just Creative Design. Maybe you could employ the same strategies to get more readers to your blog?

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According to our stats from the past 7 months (see below) these are my top 10 most popular pages on JCD.

  1. 92 More Awe Inspiring Creative Photographs
  2. 56 Awe Inspiring Creative Photographs
  3. 30 Fonts That ALL Designers Must Own
  4. 99 Sites ALL Designers Must Know About
  5. Home Page
  6. Graphic Design Portfolio
  7. Why logo design does not cost $5.00
  8. The Best Graphic Design Articles from 37 Top Design Blogs as Chosen By The Authors Themselves
  9. 15 Signs Your A Bad Graphic Designer
  10. 192 Creative, Smart & Clever Advertisements

JCD Stats

So What Blog Posts Bring In The Most Readers?

1. Long Large Numbered Resourceful Cool Lists

Upon further study you will notice that half of my top 10 posts are all geared towards the social media and they really lapped it up.

Any post that is a huge resourceful list will bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to your blog… so once in a while rather than writing 5 small posts, why don’t you spend 3 times as long writing a large list… Smashing Magazine is proof that it works and my top 4 articles prove this also.

Baby Sheep2. Original Articles with Catchy Titles

These were my three other posts that brought in tons of visitors. Each of these posts are unique and have a catchy title and are further proof that a good article with a catchy title will work for itself.


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  1. Why logo design does not cost $5.00
  2. The Best Graphic Design Articles from 37 Top Design Blogs as Chosen By The Authors Themselves
  3. 15 Signs Your A Bad Graphic Designer

For some ideas why don’t you try find something that hasn’t been written about before in your niche? Try going around to all the blogs in your niche and ask for an interview, ask for their favourite post and compile them together in one large post? There are heaps of other unique ideas out there. I highly recommend you visit our Ultimate List of Blog Heading Templates & Titles post for some inspiration.

Where Do All The Readers Come From?

Social Media and Google without a doubt… For some more information on social media I wrote about it in length in this post: What is the best social media website? Digg, SU, Delicious, Reddit or? and for some tips on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) read 10 SEO Rules for Designers.

The main traffic from JCD comes from StumbleUpon, Digg, DesignFloat and Google with the rest coming mainly from other design blogs… It really helps to be on other people’s blog rolls especially if they are in the same niche as you…I can assure you of that. Try to get on them, even if you have to ask.

Anyway, I would be interested to hear what everyone else’s most popular posts are… leave them in the comments!

43 thoughts on “What blog posts bring in the most readers?”

  2. Yeah, those resource lists are what really gets the visitors in their droves!

    My biggest post was the Obama versus McCain : Web Design Wars which got on the frontpage of stumbleupon…that was insane.

    Also, the business cards for bloggers brought in a huge amount of traffic.

    Brian Yerkess last blog post..The Times They Are A Changing

  3. My biggest one I posted a Youtube video “Obama love story” with the comment “LAWD, I’m going to have to buy a Clay Aiken CD”

    The Clay-mates came out of the woodwork…450 hits for the next 3 days. There is still a little trickle now and then that shows up in my Statcounter, coming from some Clay Aiken forum or other. (I never knew there were so many)

    Maybe I should mention Paris Hilton next time.

    Sarahs last blog post..I’ve got real estate!!

  4. Those numbers in headlines do seem to be continually effective. Well done, Jacob. I’ve been noticing JCD mentioned in a lot of blogrolls lately. Unless there’s a ‘submit your site’ link, or similar, I’d not be comfortable asking for inclusion. Particularly as I don’t have my own blogroll to showcase blogs I recommend.

    Off-topic, I see your right sidebar placed on the left / out of sync. I’m guessing there are some changes afoot?

    David Aireys last blog post..6 months of Logo Design Love

  6. Sander,
    Ah nice, giving something away for free is always a help, I have noticed since putting my classification ebook badge on the front page, downloads have tripled (and to get the book you have to subscribe).

    Brian,
    Ah I didn’t see that one but the business cards one I did. Did it ever really get off the ground? I thought it would have gotten bigger!

    Sarah,
    Paris Hilton is always a killer!

    David,
    I haven’t been going around asking however it is needed for smaller blogs and it does provide good traffic. It helps if you have a link exchange page / bar. You may seen mine under Friends on the right side bar… Maybe you could make a resources page?

    The sidebar went out of wac for 5 minutes while I was changing the position of the Google Adsense code, I got pretty scared there for a minute or two, thought I couldn’t get it back up again! I was getting ready to send out URGENT twitter messages asking for help. I still can’t get rid of this damn IE error with Google Ajax search… yours doesn’t have it so I am really not sure what is up with it.

  8. Love the sheep reference, pretty witty.

    But thanks for list, there a few that I’ve missed out on before I even knew that this site existed.

  9. Ryan,
    I usually do it via Dreamweaver however I thought it was such a simple change I did it in WordPress, stupid. Nearly ruined it.

    Erika,
    I can understand that psychology… it is more like “I am going to miss out if I don’t click here.” 2 million page views, yeah quite a lot!

    Azakers,
    Your welcome, it is good to share your experiences with others. Thanks for the compliments too 🙂

    Christine,
    Glad someone got it 😛

  10. Are you changing code live? EEK!

    get mamp if your on a mac or wamp for windows. Its a server on your computer so you can set up and work on sites locally that way you wont ruin your site code especially if you are new to coding.

    For wordpress you just update the theme files as much as you want locally and then just upload the new files when you are sure its fine.

    modemloopers last blog post..Erwin Olaf Photography Is Awesome

  11. There was an article on a marketing website a while back that talked about the effectiveness of long ordered-list posts and the psychology of the article title and how it affects the potential reader – basically saying that because it’s clear to the reader exactly what they’re going to get out of reading the article, if it’s content is targeted properly (and evident in the title) then it’s BOUND to pull in thousands of readers. So I’m not surprised by your findings.

    I am, however, astounded by 2 million page views. LOL.

    Erikas last blog post..Miami Web Design

  12. Thanks for sharing – this is great stuff – glad too see all of your hard work is paying off in traffic!

    RE: Sidebar designs
    Totally agree with Airey, the latest changes look fantastic! Wasn’t completely onboard with the pink at first, but now with the dark elements and the pink as highlights – man that looks sick… er in the good way. heh.

    Keep up the good work!

    AzAkerss last blog post..27 Great Color Scheme Tools, Generators & Resources

  14. Great post, our studio just launched our own graphic design blog a couple of days ago. This is very helpful.

    cheers,

    David Oberholtzer

    David Oberholtzers last blog post..Wednesday Afternoon Inspiration

  17. I can vouch for the numbered lists being popular. My blog’s most popular article so far has been a list of 10 seamless website designs (which is here). That one really seemed to get lots of people’s attention. Of your top 10 articles, I think my favourites are “Why logo design does not cost $5.00” and “The Best Graphic Design Articles from 37 Top Design Blogs as Chosen By The Authors Themselves” – that last one was a really great idea.

    Tracey Gradys last blog post..Beijing 2008 website

  19. Wow, thats a lot of page views. Very interesting, a topic that is on every bloggers mind!

    Oh – and i just love the photo of the little lamb. So cute…

  23. I have heard most of this advice before, lists make the best blog posts, write longer posts that cover everything instead of a lot of shorter posts etc etc. What makes your article different is that you actually added traffic statistics to back up your claims. Very cool

  24. I’m pretty lazy about the big long lists but I’m going to choose a topic and focus on it and see how it goes. Thanks for sharing Jacob.

    Jennifer Farleys last blog post..Photoshop Tutorial : Light Effects

  26. Hi Doug, I just did a stumble, digg, designfloat, twitter, cssglobe and noupe for you for your latest post… we’ll see how it goes for you. You should only plug your own posts every now and then, however it is needed sometimes. 🙂

  27. According to my feed stats the posts that bring in the most visitors are those that offer something. I have a few of these already and after reading an article on ProBlogger I decided to try my first “list-type” post: http://www.dcblog.net/2008/08/my-21-favorite-photoshop-tips.html

    Aside from shamelessly plugging it myself I haven’t noticed a big difference. Of course these things probably take time.

    Doug C.s last blog post..Twitter Me This, Twitter Me That…

  28. Jacob, I never thought I’d say this to anyone, but you’re just swell! He he…thanks. And yes, I only plugged this one and one other. It isn’t something I’m going to do on a regular basis. Just testing the waters.

    Doug C.s last blog post..Twitter Me This, Twitter Me That…

  29. My most successful blog post by far has been: http://robcubbon.com/make-your-own-pop-art-poster/ and I really don’t know why. It seems to attract a lot of kids who are doing Pop Art at school. Second most popular is: http://robcubbon.com/how-to-turn-a-photo-into-an-illustration/ which tries to explain Adobe Illustrator’s Live Trace tool. Both posts give a quick and easy explanation of a design-related technique. However, other similar post have, interestingly, not caught on. Great site, by the way.

    Rob Cubbons last blog post..Using vector illustrations in designs to deliver your message

  31. The most successful blog posts thus far have been for top 25 lists (25 is a good number, depending on the topic, as top 50 lists can drag on) and posts which feature original analysis on current topics.

  32. People really do dig lists. I know that when I come across a ‘113 best SEO tools’ etc, the author has my attention, 1. because that field interests me, and 2. because you have a small hope that you are going to discover something new that you can benefit from yourself.

    This post also serves to remind us of the importance of knowing what is popular on our site and understanding why so we can create similar buzz worthy content that people wan to link to and share.

    Thanks for sharing,

    Karl.

    P.s. My most popular blog post was about CommentLuv and how to us it more effectively. Here’s the link, I hope you like it: http://www.fmsseo.com/681/the-really-sneaky-commentluv-trick-for-better-blog-marketing-and-promotion/

  33. i’ve found the blogs that bring me the most traffic include some sensational title, or one that makes the readers want to click through to the blog. I’ve also found that the facebook “like” feature has sent quite a bit of traffic as people share the blog on FB.

  34. Impressive article there…. Infact i cant agree with you more… This article on our site 40 Smashing Digital Manipulations To Inspire You is an all time favourite 🙂

  35. Thank you for a great article! I’m going to do my best to get these tips implemented into our own blog in the hope of getting more readers.. Thanks again!

  37. Next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesn’t fail me as much as this one. I mean, Yes, it was my choice to read, but I really believed you’d have something helpful to say. All I hear is a bunch of complaining about something you could possibly fix if you were not too busy searching for attention.

  38. Thanks for this blog post, I think this will REALLY help! I’ve recently gotten involved with trying to create my own blog and grow an audience. I think it’s an important part in creating a blog is to attract the right audience.
    Also if you fellow blog posters need extra information on how to grow an audience, I also used this blog post…
    I think these two posts were EXTREMELY helpful. Thanks!

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