DAY 28: BUILD ON YOUR POPULAR CONTENT
One of the secrets to growing your blog’s audience is learning to capitalize on the stuff your readers loved the most. By now, even the newest blogger among you has a half-dozen posts under your blogging belt, and lots of you have way more than that. Time to start looking for patterns in your blog’s performance and build on your most popular content.
Today’s assignment: Find the post that has received the most views, likes, or comments, and write a related follow-up post.
Why?
Because keeping your finger on your audience’s pulse will help you write posts that people want to read.
Because learning from past performance is crucial when you start thinking about your future posting schedule.
Because the best blogs are cumulative, with posts that build on each other and take the reader on a journey.
Blogging is an ongoing conversation: with yourself, sure — but especially with your audience. When you go over your previous posts to see which resonated with readers, it’s not to rehash them for pageviews. It’s to learn what content makes the strongest, most meaningful connections with your readers, and is the first step towards developing an editorial calendar that works for you.
Which metric to look at is up to you — some posts are like-magnets, others generate lively discussion, and some are unicorns that both. Pick whichever you feel like. You can also dip your toes in your stats page, if you wish, and choose according to the post with the most views.
Think about what made that particular post attractive to others. Was it your funniest? Your most heartfelt? The one with the most adorable cat picture? You might be surprised at which post generated the most buzz, and that’s part of the learning experience.
Now, write a follow-up post: you can pick up where you left last time, or actually give more context and background about that first post. You can write about your reaction to that post’s success, or reflect on some of the comments people have left there (that’s a great way of moving the conversation forward, after all). To sure to link to the original post, so new readers can get the full story, and remember to tag your posts with “zerotohero.”
Bonus: if the adrenaline rush of getting close to the finish line has already kicked in, make the most of it and add a Recent Posts Widget to your sidebar — it’s a great way of leading new readers to your freshest content, and making sure repeat visitors can catch up quickly. (Think about that: you’ve been so prolific some of your posts are already four weeks old!) Or go a different path, and add the Top Posts Widget, which gives readers easy access to your most popular content. When you configure the widget, you can decide whether to feature your most-read or most-liked posts, as well as how many posts to list. It’s a great way to showcase your strongest material front and center.
To chat with other Zero to Hero participants, visit today’s forum thread.
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