How to Write Highly Popular 30+ Item List Blog Posts to Get Links and Traffic

Tad Chef — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:57:19 +0000

Time flies by. It’s more than two years by now that I write the highly popular “30+” list blog posts to get links and traffic for SEOptimise. I’ve often tried to abandon them, to write tutorials or other types of postings but list posts with around 30 items still rule. They get the most

shares on social media
links
attention
traffic

for several reasons.

This year some of the big guys in the SEO blogosphere started doing 30 something lists as well, SEOmoz does them, SEL compiles them. They even surpass my lists in some cases as they spend obviously more time on them than I do. Their success with this technique has just confirmed to me that 30+ lists work. That’s why I will tell you how to write them.

In the web design/web development niche even more people publish lists like that all the time.

Why 30?

For some reason 30+ lists are better suited for the Web than top 10, 20 or wahtever lists. I have a few ideas why that is the case but these ideas are just speculation. What I do know for sure is that the so called task ROI of most 30+ lists is higher than the top 10, whatever or top 100 lists.

One crucial success factor is that people tend to think in dozens not necessarily tens IMHO.

The decimal system makes us read and write top 10, top 20 or top 100 lists but the more “natural” way to count is by using dozens as in twelve hours. That’s why a number like 36 sounds better to many of us. Even though 30 is two and a half dozens this number just seems to entice people to read.

Also most people are tired of top 10 and 20 lists, they have been overused. Here again 30+ sounds more natural.

Last but not least you simply can’t compile a list of 100 items without broadening the topic or lowering the quality of the list.

Most lists are comprehensive enough with around 30 items.

More items would often be redundant or less relevant. A top 10 list also implies a personal selection of some kind. You have to choose “the best” 10 while 30 items cover a subject in depth.

That’s why I sometimes even reduce the number of items in a list, at least in the headline. One of my favorite lists has been the one about advanced SEO which contained 55+ links but only around 30 items officially.

Delicious

I collect great posts from SEO blogs in my Delicious account onreact.com and I tag them according to a set of rules. I add mostly tags I’ve used in the past to categorize these posting in relevant groups.

Then from time to time I take a look at some of the tags and those that contain more than 10 or 20 items get my attention. Sometimes they are almost thirty already so I just have to copy and paste the links. I delete the unworthy ones and add some from outside my Delicious bookmarks but the bulk of the work has been done while reading social media, search and SEO news in the morning each day.

Sometimes I have to combine several tags into one trend. The brutal thruths about Google, SEO etc. have been such a list. It was clear to me that there was a trend in the industry to write about the less glamorous parts of the SEO game but I couldn’t name it. Then the inspiration came out of nowhere and I have found the common ground to add it up to a list.

In some cases I don’t use Delicious at all. I simply get inspired and write down approx. 30 items from the top of my head.

Twitter

From time to time I use Twitter to crowdsource list items. The SEO FAQ list heavily relied on input from my Twitter followers. Also the black hat SEO techniques list has grown with a little help of my friends.

You have to ask the right questions and offer incentives though. The SEO FAQ offered both backlinks and content for those who took part. I asked my Twitter followers about the black hat SEO techniques their arch enemies use. Otherwise people would probably mostly stay low key.

Link list or item list?

A simple link list is not the best kind of list. Sometimes I just have to compile a list of resources and link them beacuse there are so many of them. Such a list can overwhelm though. Many people like lists because they want to have a quick overview about a subject, not a huge reading list. Therefore a combined text item list with added links for further reading is the best option. This way you get both kinds of list readers, the save for later bunch as well as the quick overview group.

A simple link list will not be as popular as an item list with added links to prove the points. Still both list formats are highly popular. A 30+ list post done in 4h will get more traction on the Web than a tutorial that took 6 or 8h to write.

Linking out

Another key factor leading to the overwhelming success of my lists posts in general is the massive amount of outbound links. While many SEOs are still stuck in the past and attempt to hoard PageRank and trap users like the news media do I rely on linking out for SEO reasons.

We already know that Google prefers sites that link out

(after all they need outgoing links to determine their PageRank algo) but have no proof yet that they affect rankings directly.

What’s obvious though is that people who you are linking to will link back to you, spread the word on social media and support your blog or even business in the future.

So at the end of the day the fact that I link out to dozens of other blogs get me traffic and links in significant numbers.

Contrary to popular wisdom SEOptimise has improved in rankings in recent years ever since we link out in large numbers. SEOptimise ranks in the top 10 for some of the most competitive search marketing terms while being a relatively small agency compared to the competition.

Also the lists themselves tend to rank quite well. SEOptimise ranks top 3 for [advanced SEO], [SEO techniques] or [social media statistics].

The secret is our broad, organic backlink structure build up by business blogging utilizing these highly popular 30+ items list posts.

Google keyword estimator is a liar! Use Google Insights for more accuracy #BrightonSEOJuly 23, 2010 1:39 pm via Twitter for iPhoneAlexMinchin
Alex Minchin

There are some seriously valuable tools in this presentation! Wanna play with buzzstream and highrisehqJuly 23, 2010 3:20 pm via Twitter for BlackBerryu00aecrockstarltd
Samuel Crocker

Think about SEO efficiency, scalability & streamline admin - sensible stuff from @simondance #brightonseoJuly 23, 2010 3:12 pm via webkevgibbo
Kevin Gibbons

Why not use PPC impression share data to inform SEO reports - @robgreenseo uses adgooroo to collate these per competitor #brightonseoJuly 23, 2010 2:06 pm via TweetDeckjaamit
Jaamit Durrani

create mini campaigns,ask a question you want to know about WHO ur visitors are & implement custom variables. simple & useful. #brightonseoJuly 23, 2010 2:21 pm via TweetDecksearchpanda
Annabel Hodges

SEO isn't just SEO anymore - you need to be a politician, marketer, public speaker and lobbyist. The MD doesnt understand SEO. #brightonseoJuly 23, 2010 3:44 pm via TweetDeckjaamit
Jaamit Durrani

Pay with a Tweet - A social payment system ... new concept highlighted at #BrightonSEO http://bit.ly/dqqWU1July 23, 2010 3:37 pm via Seesmic for AndroidGR3GD
Greg Dreyfus

"Seo isn't seo anymore - be a politician, marketer, public speaker, a lobbyist" @rishil #brightonseoJuly 23, 2010 3:43 pm via Seesmicnedwells
Ned Wells

SEO revenue forecasts - look at growth in unbranded, organic, core & long-tail traffic @thetafferboy #brightonseoJuly 23, 2010 1:48 pm via webkevgibbo
Kevin Gibbons

#BrightonSEO - Wordpress plugins 2 boost ur blog Blackbird pie, Tweetmeme, Su.pr, FlickrRSS, all in one SEO, RSS Footer, broken link checkerJuly 23, 2010 12:49 pm via Seesmic for AndroidGR3GD
Greg Dreyfus

Link building CRM tool buzzstream mentioned at #brightonseo < I'd highly recommend buzzstream for organising link buildingJuly 23, 2010 3:21 pm via TweetDeckpaddymoogan
Paddy Moogan

Anchor text for inlinks are not as important as brand anchor text @ #BrightonSEO from @nicholastottJuly 23, 2010 4:16 pm via Twitter for BlackBerryu00aecharliesaidthat
Charlie Southwell

Competitions + creativity + pre-building relationships = links @crockstarltd #BrightonSEOJuly 23, 2010 3:02 pm via Twitter for iPhoneAlexMinchin
Alex Minchin

#Brightonseo presentation : Big Brand SEO - Get Stuff Done http://slidesha.re/abbbbxJuly 23, 2010 3:57 pm via mobile webrishil
Rishi Lakhani

Competions - YouTube; need budget, Twitter; use hashtags, Reddit; not great, Digg; use infographic, StumbleUpon; buy credits #brightonseoJuly 23, 2010 3:03 pm via webkevgibbo
Kevin Gibbons

If u want to get to top, u have to kiss a lot of the bottom -classic @rishil. My fortune = book of his quotes in time for Xmas. #brightonseoJuly 23, 2010 3:50 pm via TweetDecksearchpanda
Annabel Hodges

It’s actually incredibly quick to write a post like this, all you need to do is install the plugin and insert the tweet URL into your post using the format: [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/kevgibbo/status/19346618549″].

Three of the most trusted SEO and social media experts, Rhea Drysdale, Tamar Weinberg and Lee Odden. Photo by toprankonlinemarketing.

Interviews are often overlooked pieces of distilled wisdom. They aren’t very popular on social media but they definitely should be! In interviews experts often provide the most valuable nuggets of their knowledge in a very concise form. You need to study dozens of other blog posts to learn as much.

Moreover experts often tend to focus on one aspect a time when they write something themselves, even when compiling a list like this. On the other hand interviews focus on several key questions an expert wouldn’t even attempt to cover in one blog post or seminar. These facts combined result in in a very condensed piece of advice.

Also it’s quite difficult to determine who’s a real expert and who is not in the SEO industry and even more in social media marketing.

When someone gets interviewed s/he’s either popular or an expert or both. The difficulty in compiling this list of interviews was not finding 30 of them but sorting out the less valuable ones from the dozens there are. Also I wanted to feature not only the people everybody knows already like Rand Fishkin or Matt Cutts. There are numerous interviews with them.

Some true experts hide behind an invisible persona as an inhouse SEO and/or social media expert

but really have something to say others haven’t. So I added a few of inhouse SEO expert from big enterprises.

Last but not least I couldn’t find good interview that offers deep insights with some of the brightest minds of the industry like Danny Sullivan or Barry Schwartz. There were either too short, shallow, outdated or too much focused on a specific event or topic. Add those in the comment section if you think they are must read. I repeat, I didn’t just look at the names, I solely selected those interviews that offer real insights.

OK, enough of this, follow the links below to read the interviews with some of the most renowned SEO and social media experts.

SEO experts

Inhouse SEO experts

Social Media experts

Matt Cutts and other Google employees

Business Blogging experts

To be honest: A list of interviews with experts in both SEO and social media could have been a top 100, 200 or 2000. Due to time and reader attention limitations I had to choose approx. 30 of them. Don’t think just because I haven’t included someone s/he isn’t an expert. It was a really tough choice.

I even included an interview with myself without being sure whether people consider me an expert but I was quite sure that I provided some unique insights in this interview.

So accept my apologies for not being on the list please!

Btw. how do I know who’s an expert and who is not? Difficult question. I think I’m at least expert enough by now to determine who is an expert on the subject of SEO and social media.

The interviews above have been conducted between 2008 and 2010. For hundreds of SEO & social media interviews from 2008 and earlier visit this huge list by Donna Fontenot.

So China just renewed Google’s license to operate there. Google has tried to “abide by Chinese law” as they prefer to put it. Chinese law says: The communist party decides what’s the truth and what not. What’s not true shall neither be published nor searched for.

Are multinational corporations like Google good law abiding citizens? Rarely. Is Google abiding by the laws elsewhere? Well, just look at the other news today.

May I cite:

from BBC: “Google’s Street View ‘snoops’ on Congress members” (my emphasis):

[The search giant said the snippets could include parts of an email, text, photograph, or even the website someone might be viewing.

"We think the Google Wi-Spy effort is one of the biggest wire tapping scandals in US history," John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog told BBC News.]

from AP (via Yahoo! News): “Australia: Google Street View broke privacy law” (my emphasis):

[Google broke Australia's privacy law when it collected private information from wireless networks, the country's privacy commissioner said Friday, following an investigation into the Internet giant's "Street View" mapping service.

(...)

In May, Google acknowledged it had mistakenly collected fragments of data over public Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries while it was taking pictures of neighborhoods for the Street View feature. ]

Just think about it! How absurd this sounds. They mistakenly spied for years on hundreds of millions of people in around 30 countries! Wow. That’s quite a big “mistake” if you ask me. Sounds like a thousand BP oil spills.

Google StreetView operators might have had access to your email, they might know the websites you have visited. They know who you are and where you live. The data has been collected and Google still has it. And btw. Google collects such data using other tools as well.

So let’s return to China issue: Google is trying to abide by the law in China. They are really trying hard by breaking every major law of democratic countries like the US or from Europe. Most if not all of these countries guarantee free speech not only by law but in the constitution.

OK, so Google China now doesn’t redirect anymore to Google Hong Kong, the allegedly uncensored search in Chinese. You have to click now to get there. Now, that’s fine? Don’t you think? This way the Chinese people can see uncensored results!

Sorry to disappoint you: Google Hong Kong gets censored as well. I needed just one search query to find it out: I’ve searched for [police brutality china] and got some results, none of real brutality on top though.

Then I tried the same search on Google.com, Google.co.uk, Google.de, Google.pl etc.

Everywhere else I got the same but different results, Chinese police officers beating down monks and other demonstrators. So Google keeps on censoring in China and lying about it.

Google’s fake excuse of “abiding by the laws” is just a cynical way to deal with critics.

Now that we have the topic of police brutality and abiding by the laws: Recently a new law has been passed in Toronto, Canada for the G20 sumit granting the police powers only known from dictatorships. They could detain anybody without reason and by using force. They did. Watch this video below to find out how it looked from the peaceful protester and innocent bystander perspective. Also listen to the police beating down harmless people: “We’re just obeying orders.”

Abiding by the laws and obeying orders is sometimes not enough.

When laws or orders do not abide by the universal human rights and democratic principles you are actually breaking laws by abiding by the laws and obeying orders. I’m pretty sure that in Canada pretty soon some high ranking politicians and police offers will be sacked and tried in court for abiding by undemocratic laws and obeying criminal orders.

Google abides only by the laws they choose to. They ignored and broke the laws of most countries Google StreetView data has been collected in. Sorry, I don’t believe they just didn’t now what data they collect for years. I’m not that naive. Also they censor results in China and Hong Kong, a practice illegal everywhere else.

Are you in China? Do you speak Chinese? Can you access Google Hong Kong and are the results censored as well?

Dear Readers, at the end of last week I haven’t published the “Twitter weekly” column. This time it was no poor time management issue. I did it on purpose. The week before I had written a highly popular “Twitter weekly” post but it was the last of its sort. Why?

The Twitter hype is over!

Twitter has peaked usage and traffic-wise in January, or maybe even earlier. That’s not the main reason though. Also Google Trends still shows an increase. We had started publishing the Twitter column when Twitter traffic had been far less significant. No, the real reason are Twitter news or rather non-news.

The week before last week I really had to deal with baseless rumors and to spice them up with some exaggerated colloquial language. While it was fun I realized that’s it’s not a tabloid here. I don’t want to sound like a jerk just to hide the fact that there is nothing of importance to report or analyze.

Sure there are Twitter news and developments you could write about but they are daily business of a second rate player.

Twitter is big but not as crucial as Google and Facebook

and by now I have the impression that the time spend on covering Twitter is unjustified. I will keep on writing concise posts about Google, Facebook and Twitter or whomever will be most deserving at a given moment. There is no need for a weekly Twitter column anymore though.

That’s OK. The Web landscape is ever changing and you have to react quickly. My nickname wouldn’t be “onreact” if I would ignore the changes.

Is Twitter negligible now? No.

Will I quit Twitter? No. Does Twitter marketing and SEO still make sense? Yes.

I will keep on using Twitter daily at least once daily but i want exclusively focus my writing habits on that subject. The hype is over. That’s a good thing. Covering Twitter’s business consolidation is no fun though.

They keep on alienating users, developers. They hide their numbers and practice corporate newspeak (like “promoted tweets” for ads). I’ve searched Topsy for the most popular results on Twitter in the last month and I couldn’t find something really relevant. So I’ll shut up. I won’t try to revive a dead hype myself.

Add filter=0&start=990 to URL for site: Google query – shows more accurate indexing no @stephanspencer #smxless than a minute ago via TwitterrificKevin Gibbons
kevgibbo

Real-time factors; user authority, followers (count, quality & ratio) no of retweets & freshness – use twitanalyzer @jshehata #smxless than a minute ago via TwitterrificKevin Gibbons
kevgibbo

“anyone know…” query on Twitter – great way to find customers & give direct answer @dannysullivan #smxless than a minute ago via TwitterrificKevin Gibbons
kevgibbo

Linking root domain easily outweighs overall number of links for exact match anchor text – @randfish #smxless than a minute ago via TweetDeckKevin Gibbons
kevgibbo

Bing news submission – email bns@microsoft.com instead of online submission #smxless than a minute ago via TweetDeckKevin Gibbons
kevgibbo

Bing tips: Use local listings (MS version of Google Places) & webmaster center (Goog WT) – @janetdmiller #smxless than a minute ago via TweetDeckKevin Gibbons
kevgibbo

RT @Jonahstein #SMX you can add allinurl operator to get total indexed including supplemental http://bit.ly/c8eeIZ http://bit.ly/axcK8rless than a minute ago via TwitterrificKevin Gibbons
kevgibbo

RT @vanessafox search result personification: number of images shown in universal depends on searchers screen size #smxless than a minute ago via TweetDeckKevin Gibbons
kevgibbo

Interesting, good idea RT @APSG Page speed is taken from toolbar data not from datacentres! #smxless than a minute ago via TwitterrificKevin Gibbons
kevgibbo

Baseline SEO testing metrics; visits/searches, average SERPs & KPI’s (average revenue per visit/search) @jordanlebaron #smxless than a minute ago via TweetDeckKevin Gibbons
kevgibbo

RT @davereynolds_UK: #smx Split and A/B Testing Confidence Calculator http://abtester.com/calculator/less than a minute ago via TweetDeckKevin Gibbons
kevgibbo

RT @fabioricotta RT @steph_woods: Should be tracking crawl to index ratio. #smxless than a minute ago via TwitterrificKevin Gibbons
kevgibbo

It’s been a very good conference and great to finally meet a lot of people in the US (too many to mention) and have one or two beers with the likes of Guy Levine, David Reynolds and Richard Baxter.

SEOptimise » Blog

How to Write Highly Popular 30+ Item List Blog Posts to Get Links and Traffic