Top 10 reasons to include the word ‘top’ and a number in your post title
I’m sorry to disappoint all you list fiends out there but I will not be writing a top 10 list in this post. Instead, I want to discuss the ‘Top X’ blogging phenomenon!!
If you check the posts with the most incoming links at Blogging Tips through Blog Storm you will see this list.
At the very top of the list is the ‘Top 10 mistakes new bloggers make‘ post with 135 incoming links. Since the June 2007 competition post cannot be considered a regular blogging post the difference between the top 10 post and the next highest is considerable.
You may be asking why I’m talking about all this? Well I believe the ‘Top 10 mistakes new bloggers make‘ post to be a good post but it is not a groundbreaking post. I didn’t write about anything that hadn’t been covered elsewhere at some point or other in the last few years. Granted this post was my view on the subject but I was still surprised to see this post at the top of the list in front of other posts I spent more time writing.
Bloggers Love Lists
I strongly believe one of the reasons my ‘top 10‘ post did so well was because of the title. Most bloggers already know how important a good post title is but even I was surprised at how much a ‘Top X’ type post could encourage other bloggers to link to a post.
I’ve noticed that ‘Top X’ type posts do very well in Digg too. I think there are two main reasons why these posts are so popular.
- The title of the post quickly lets the reader know what the post is about.
- The list format of the post makes it easy for bloggers to digest the information ie. imagine my top 10 post was called ‘Bloggers mistakes’ and the information was not in a list format (eg. bullet points).
Write a top X list
Like anything in this world, moderation is the key. If you write a top list type post every few days your readers may get tired of your writing style but it is worth doing a top post every now and then.
For example,
- Top 5 reasons I ……
- Top 10 ways to ………
- 50 classic wordpress themes
- Top 100 movies of all time
- and so on and so on
Have your top list posts brought you a lot of traffic? I’d love to hear how about the success readers have had with posts like this 
Ramkarthik | July 29th, 2007 at 5:24 am #
Kevin, I agree that Top X posts are the best ones for a blog. Most of the big bloggers’ flagship content are the List posts. Also the other reason why you post List post got so many links is that Problogger linked to it once in their linking post. Few readers of problogger link to articles linked by him(Including Me). So you got some tereffic number of link backs. But still, your “Top 10….” post was great and worth a link. Hope you get me.
Myo Kyaw Htun | July 29th, 2007 at 6:32 am #
Those are crazy! You’ll probably see in Digg
Celebrienne | July 29th, 2007 at 7:49 am #
Kevin, I think there are 3 additional reasons why this post attracted so much (link) attention.
1.) Not only the format was easy to “digest”, but the content as well. It’s a quick read and easy to follow the topic. Now imagine you would’ve written a “Top X” post on how to turn “WordPress in a CMS“. I doubt the response would be the same. It’s a technical topic and though it might be more useful than the one about blogging mistakes, for the most of us the topic is too tedious to get the same attention.
2.) Another reason might be the relationship between your blog’s name (BloggingTips) and the title “Top 10 mistakes new bloggers make“. The name builds credibility, so people think you’re more of an authority in this field than any other. If a personal blog did the same post, I doubt it would’ve have hit it so big even when the author might be as experienced as you.
3.) Finally, a “top” post always implies that the unrelevant, unimportant points have been cut out, so the reader doesn’t have to go through 20 points only to find 5 of them which are valuable. The reader assumes that by reading this top post, he saves time and other blog owners who want to provide value to their readers are hence more inclined to link to such a post.
P.S.: Consider increasing the line height of your lists to something around 150% in your stylesheet. Your paragraphs look fine, but the line height of the lists is too dense right now to be as easily digested as the rest of the post.
If you’re not experienced with CSS, it must look something like this:
.post ul, .post ol {
line-height: 150%;
}
Kevin | July 29th, 2007 at 8:55 am #
Thanks for the comments guys
Celebrienne - I’m not too bad with CSS. I’m not a guru or anything but I know enough to get by (I coded this theme).
I’ve increased the line height to 150%. I agree with you, it looks much better now. Thanks for your help
Mani Karthik | July 29th, 2007 at 9:20 am #
Kevin, I agree.
I reckon, one of my best posts here on BT, was the “Top 5 mistakes”. That one was pretty popular too right?
Kevin | July 29th, 2007 at 9:22 am #
Yes it was Mani, I’m sure that post got linked by Darren Rowse too
TextAdSearch | July 29th, 2007 at 9:30 am #
You are indeed correct, top can also be used effectively for resources too. Such as top videos sites of top blog directories.
Webmasters love ‘em.
Myo Kyaw Htun | July 29th, 2007 at 9:31 am #
Kevin,
you ROCK !!!
As far as i noticed is that this post is not List article, how come you named the title
‘Top 10 reasons’ ? Joke ?
Celebrienne | July 29th, 2007 at 9:35 am #
Aaaaah, that’s so much better on the eyes now.
Great job on coding this theme, it’s sweet (though, imo, the header is a bit too big and pushes the content too far down, maybe you’d want to include a “Skip to content“-link somewhere in the header, so people with low a screen resolution don’t have to scroll before they see the content).
Just noticed that the line-height in the comments is also pretty dense. It doesn’t really matter in short comments, but the longer ones (like my first comment on this post) are hard to read this way. What I would do is set the line-height of paragraphs globally to 150% (-> p {line-height:150%;} -> That should get the line-height problem out of sight.
Oh my, I’m such a nitpicker
Kevin | July 29th, 2007 at 9:51 am #
Your not nitpicking at all, infact I really appreciate bringing this to my attention. I’ve increased the line height in the comments as well and it looks much better. Again, I appreciate your help with this
With regards to the header, it’s fairly easy for me to shrink the dimensions of the header. What does everyone else think about this. Do you think the blog would look better if the header image was shrunk a little?
Skellie | July 29th, 2007 at 9:55 am #
I wrote on numbered headlines recently. I guess it’s become something of a phenomenon and it’s interesting to try and understand why.
Leo Babauta is the master of this and the blogs he writers for (ZenHabits.net, FreelanceSwitch.com) have all achieved really remarkable success.
I think the key to their success is that they provide a lot of information about the content in the time it takes a reader to glance over a headline. In a split second you can know that the following post will contain “Eight ways to make more money” — which is pretty powerful if you consider how little time people take to decide if they’re going to read something or not.
Mani Karthik | July 29th, 2007 at 9:57 am #
I don’t think the header should be shrunken anymore Kev,
It fits right for me on the normal and higher browser resolutions.
May be you should post a poll all over on the template tweaks. What say?
Celebrienne | July 29th, 2007 at 10:25 am #
I just checked it on my old laptop (14.1 inch screen with 1024×768 resolution) and the header takes approx. 1/3 of the whole screen area. Which is a lot for a blog of your topic (it might be OK for a photography or art blog, but your emphasis should be on your content). Every pixel is valuable these days (you might want to include a top leaderboard when BT takes off).
You should check your stats and look what’s the most used screen resolution among your visitors (an easy task with Sitemeter or Google Analytics). Afaik, the most popular screen resolution is still 1024×768.
Further, you could also create a page titled “BloggingTips User Survey” where you put up some polls and ask your readers questions, e.g. what they like about BT and what they want you to change about it, etc. It’s easier than asking your readers to leave comments.
I’m glad you’re not offended by my suggestions. Good idea with the template tweaks post, Mani! I promise, I won’t continue contaminating the comments here anymore and stop being off topic.
Have a great sunday!
Kevin | July 29th, 2007 at 10:33 am #
I have the wp polls plugin installed but I don’t use it, I normally prefer to post directly to readers about this on the blog or via the forums.
I’ll add a poll to the sidebar for a week or so to see what sort of feedback I get
Wallace | July 29th, 2007 at 11:31 am #
it is a tactic for a NEW blog to get traffic and readers indeed, visit my site and you will figure it out. but anyway the quality is the king even you have a “top x” title. once people find the content is not matched with the title, no doubt, all you will un dugg and even backlist your blog.
Kevin | July 29th, 2007 at 12:57 pm #
Very nice blog you have there CSS Juice
If your interested in writing a guest post at BloggingTips please let me know 
Wallace | July 29th, 2007 at 6:16 pm #
it is great but i don’t have time at this moment as CSS Juice is still so new and need more content.
anyway, i will catch the chance as it is a chance to get more readers through BT one of the fastest growing blog.
Michael Fultz | July 30th, 2007 at 12:11 am #
I think that the word “top” has a positive meaning. People want to be on “top”, so when they see something followed by the word “top” they think: “That’s me, I gotta act!” It is also about people’s laziness and impatience. People want things now. They don’t want to wait, so if they can get the “top” right now, that’s all that matters.
cmanlong | July 30th, 2007 at 7:42 am #
I know I have seen this in the posts on my blog. I wrote an article Your So Vain - Top 10 Reasons John Chow Probably Thinks This Blog Is About Him. I got more traffic and links to that post than almost any other post to date. It certainly, in my opinion, isn’t my best.
James Oppenheim | July 30th, 2007 at 8:10 am #
Yeah this is definitely going around at the moment. I think these types of post are easy to write, but more importantly easy to scan if you don’t have a lot of time. I know I always like a good top 10!
chrisblogging.com | July 30th, 2007 at 1:14 pm #
You are exactly write about this. Not only do readers love lists, but bloggers should love them as well. For me, “list articles” are always the easiest to write…
The Buxr Widget | July 30th, 2007 at 2:14 pm #
Every adsense advertisement I see for Forbes is another list:
Top 10 cities to live in
Top 25 paying jobs
Top 10 was to get you to click on a Forbes ad
More Merchant | July 31st, 2007 at 12:22 pm #
My Top posts have always done well.
I am getting tired of reading the top… headings though.
Ready for a new idea.
Nirmal | August 1st, 2007 at 4:22 am #
I agree with you Kevin, whenever we search anything, we start with the word Top to get the best ones.