Recipe for Success! What Makes a Popular Blog Post?

For anyone who missed my Most Popular Blog Posts! (And I Want to Know What Are Yours!?) post Vicki from Cosy Books and I hosted a post with our top ten most popular blog posts stat wise and encouraged other bloggers to let us know what theirs are too. We also promised a discussion post with what we found out which is what we’re bringing to you today! If you missed the first part of the post click the title above and you can find out what my all-time most popular blog posts are.

Conclusion
Jess say's
"I think what I've learnt from doing this post is that there are a wide variety of blogs out there with different strengths and specialities and our followers seem to respond to those strengths best and the same follower/person might visit one blog for reviews and they may visit another for the discussions or meme's or blog tours etc. I think together we make a complete, strong, and varied community and so all together essentially work as one big team to promoting reading and books.

I think I've learnt that hype and popular books or posts is not created solely due to one blogger but the whole blogosphere mentioning the book whether that be with a great review, guest post or giveaway. I think we all have a strength that makes this big community work and if you didn't have the people who write really great reviews, or the people who do meme's religiously, or the people who do lots of giveaways the whole thing wouldn't be as successful as it is on a whole.

I think the key is to find what your good at and what you enjoy, what you contribute to the blogging world and what your followers like to read and then work with it and your followers will respond to that and that's how a popular post, or book even, is made.

On a side note one thing that Vicki and I found was that a lot of bloggers most popular blog posts have something to do with angels! Now whether this is because their very popular to read about, or if it’s religious bods googling angels or even some very real angelic assistance ;) either way most bloggers who do a post on the topic of angels whether that be guest post, review or giveaway seems to be on to a win when it comes to stats!"

Vicki say's
"Looking at my most popular posts and hearing about other peoples has been an interesting experience. I actually thought that giveaways and possibly some In My Mail Box posts might have dominated my top ten, so to see reviews there has been a pleasent surprise. What I've learned is that the posts we write have much further reach than the bloggers who comment on them and just because a post doesn't have many comments doesn't mean it's not being read. And in the case of my most popular reviews, long after they've been published and disappeared from the home page. Sometimes I think we forget about the internet readers beyond our cosy blogging group.

The other thing I've learned is not to worry that I'm writing what people want to read and instead I should write what I want, the readers will come! There's been a lot of debate about blog tours and interviews and their worth. And sometimes it does feel like no-one reads them as they often don't attract the most comments. But with three such posts taking places in my top 10, again the wider audience is there and hopefully enjoying the content they find. With 90% of my traffic coming from google/search engine searches and finding posts written over two years ago at times, I've also learned that older book reviews are just as worthwhile as having the most upto date releases. Oh and people *really* like Angels!"

If you’d like to take part and do a post featuring your most popular blog posts feel free! Just make sure you link it up in the comments on either this post or the original post, we’d still love to read them! If not a quick comment on what you think makes a popular blog post would be fab and greatly appreciated. I also just wanted to say a big thank you to Vicki for suggesting this idea to me and asking if I’d like to take part it’s been fun and make sure you stop by her blog Cosy Books too!

My Most Popular Blog Posts! (And I Want to Know What Are Yours!?)

The other day on Twitter me and a few other bloggers where discussing our most popular blog posts and it seemed that everyone had a range of different things. It really led me to thinking about what exactly makes a post popular? How much is down to content and how much is chance, date and time and where it’s linked to? I found it really interesting to hear what other bloggers most popular posts are their reaction to them and why they think that is. So Vicki at Cosy Books and I have decided to do this post to share with you our blogs most popular posts. We’d also love to know what yours are as well if you’re a blogger so please feel free to do your own post or if you don’t have time leave a comment with what yours are. We’re also planning a discussion post about this topic so all input would be hugely appreciated!

My Top Ten Most Popular Posts

1.) My most popular post of all time is My First Year as a Blogger Summed Up! A post which has had 3,019 Pageviews but only 5 comments so you wouldn’t think it comments wise! I think this could be my most popular post for a number of reasons, one it was a very popular meme going round at the time, two it has links going to several other blogs, three it features a lot of books and information about blogs and blogging and could be an ideal post to read if you’re looking to start a new book blog. And fourth it has a picture of the Fuentes brothers I mean who doesn’t want to see that right?
2.) In second place hot on the tails of my number one post is Passion Blog Tour: Lauren Kate’s Favourite Luce and Daniel Moments including a scene from Passion and upcoming and final book Rapture! I think the title for this one pretty much speaks for itself. This series is hugely popular worldwide and on the tour I was lucky enough to give readers a sneaky glimpse of what to expect from not only new book Passion but also Rapture the final book. This was also linked up to a lot of places like the books Facebook page and Lauren Kate’s facebook page. Random House did a fantastic job of promoting it and this post still gets a few page views every week to this day!
3.) Third is a review, yay! And it’s for the last book in possibly my favourite series ever Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead. I was lucky enough to read this book on embargo before the release date so I managed to get my review up pretty speedy and close to the books release. I think that and the fact that again it’s the last book in a hugely popular series really played a part in the success for this one. But because it was never really linked to anywhere I like to think my actual review and love for that book factors in somewhere too!
4.) Next up is my 1st Blogoversary Giveaway. This was an awesome giveaway (if I do say so myself!) giving away a choice from my favourite books. Again the numerous books mentioned I think had something to do with this posts success and also the fact that it was my blogs birthday and all of my lovely readers wanted to pop over and say congrats! And of course who doesn’t like winning books? Especially when it’s international!
5.) Fifth is strangely a random In My Mailbox post. These always do well on my blog and get a lot of views but I really can’t place my finger on what makes this one so special. I’ve had bigger hauls so I guess this is one of those posts where I just got lucky and a lot of people must have been following IMM that week! I think this is one of those posts that just had to do with timing.
6.) In sixth place is one of my personal favourite posts my Scary, Spooky and Supernatural – Jess’s top pick’s for Halloween! I absolutely loved writing this post and this is another one that still gets a lot of views today! This one was never linked up to anywhere but I think it’s just one of those fun posts that people enjoy and again it recommends a lot of books in one post.
7.) Next is another review this time for Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick. Funnily enough when speaking to Vicki one thing that we found is that Angel books seem to be VERY popular as they featured in both of our top posts. This one has never been linked to anywhere and I didn’t receive this one for review or get it early. I think it’s just a popular series and hopefully people like the review!
8.) Keeping with the theme for 8th is ANOTHER angel related post this time with a review for Passion by Lauren Kate. Basically what I said above for this one except I did get this one early for review. Further more proof that people seem to really love books about angels!
9.) In at 9th place is another post that I loved writing it’s one of my Random Rambling posts this one talking about My Top 10 Bookish Peeves and Loves. This one isn’t a meme and so isn’t linked to anywhere. It doesn’t even really feature any books or exclusive information so it seems like people just liked this one in general for the content and writing which is a nice thought. I love writing my Random Rambling posts so it’s nice that one of them has made it into my top ten!
10.) And last of all is a post from when I was a newbie blogger and took part in the Book Bloggers Hop. And I think that the reason for this one’s success is purely because it’s a popular meme and like with the IMM post it must have been a very busy week with lots of people taking part!

So that’s it for my popular posts. Make sure you stop by Cosy Books for Vicki’s most popular posts! Again we would LOVE you to take part in this if you too are a book blogger partly for research on a discussion post but mostly because we are nosy! Even if you’re too busy to take part we would love for you to leave your top 3 posts or any thoughts you have in the comments but if you do decide to do a post feel free to leave a link in the comments we would love to read them.