What my Top 10 blog post says about Blog reading culture

I have been blogging consistently for a little over 8 years, and I have written all kinds of post. I decided to analyse my most popular posts, and see what was unique about them.

1.TGIFridays Experience and 100th Post Giveaway

This is my highest viewed post, with a traffic of…, which is not surprising. From the day I put up this post in 2011, it has been skyrocketing in views. I knew nothing about blog traffics when I wrote about my experience at TGIFridays. I definitely was not looking for views 5 years later. But this tells us that when you write about a popular world-class brand, you are sure to keep gathering views for years and years to come

2. One more Blog Post

You would thing my second highest viewed post has nothing special in its title, but the word “blog post” is a very key word in the SEO world. Then add a good content underneath, you become king. This post is less than 2 years old, yet it made the second spot in my top 10. Lesson, SEO works

3. I want to burst some bloggers' bubbles

This post has two things going on for it when it comes to traffic. Firstly, it reeks of gossip (it is actually a blogville community gossip), and secondly, it has the keyword “blogger”. It seems anything that has the words, blog, blog post, bloggers, how to blog, etc. is always a winner every time.

4. Wordpressers speak back: Nigerian Blogger users are ignorant, backward, etc

I wrote this post during the wordpress vs blogger fracas, which honestly I caused, albeit unintentionally. It turned out to be a very friendly war between wordpressers and bloggers, when the community was still strong. This post made it for two reasons, it is a warzone post, it has the word Nigerian bloggers, and it makes use of a condemning statement about a country, which is not the goal of the post.

5. "I have decided to stop attending church!"

Anything about church condemnation, pastor criticism, how a popular televangelist molested people, sells. These kinds of gossip posts attracts traffic like mad. This post was publicised on all my platfoms, and many people saw me as church girl, also being a teen’s teacher in church. So imagine me going public with my intention to stop attending church. It’s either people wanted to know why or they just wanted to join me in stoning the church, lol.

6. The “It is well” generation.

I don’t think the title made this one popular at all. Firstly, it was publicised on all my platforms, which really doesn’t matter because many other posts were publicised on my platforms too. But this particular post had many keyword in the content itself.  When you read it, you would see controversial words like Femi Otedola,  Farouk Lawan , 170 million Nigerians, Shunemite woman, Horatio Gates Spafford, Chibok Girls, Boko Haram, Elisha, etc. I might be wrong though.  Maybe the word “It is well” is a keyword. All I can say is that it is one of my most popular posts

7. How I hustled to graduate from University
Again… gossip sells. It is of the opinions that I did really well in university, so when a post title begins to claim the reverse, people want to know (things about your personal life they shouldn’t ordinarily know). Just do a post about how you slept with 5 men in 2 months, and see what happens, lol.

8. How I see Nigerian Blogsville (2) – The two clans... not cliques

This holds the same point as number 4. Exactly the same points

9. Almighty's Formula by Atilola Moronfolu

The keyword made this post great. Almighty Formula is a very popular topic in mathematics that can solve any quadratic equation other methods can’t solve. When people google it, they are sometimes led to my post, which talks about another type of Almighty Formula

10. Close Shaves Series – part 4 : The AUR Story

At first glance, there’s nothing unique about this post. But I remember that when I was publicising it on my platforms, the caption was “how I opened my legs for a man”. Just like number 5 post, many people know I don’t believe and engage in premarital sex, and here I am, opening my legs for a man? What is happening here? Again, gossip! (people want to know what they shouldn’t ordinarily know).

So the summary of what I have learnt from my Top 10 posts when it comes reading culture, and this is something you can use if you are interested in growing your blog traffic
1. Writing about big brands attracts traffic
2. All that SEO and Keyword life, they work big time
3. People love gossip. People want to know what they shouldn’t ordinarily know, and if you can keep feeding their desires, they’ll keep coming back for more.

Lastly, let me add that I don’t write for traffic. I’m more about content. If the content is right, people will eventually come. I do not strategically position myself to increase traffic by inputing keywords, spreading gossips, etc. I just write, and I just want people to read. I implore you all to read these top 10 posts, I can assure you that you will enjoy them.