It’s important to showcase your best posts in the sidebar of your blog. The aim is to drive readers deeper into your blog. This may turn a casual reader into a subscriber, because he or she gets to read your best posts.
There are some important markers that determine whether a post is popular or not:
1. A post has many comments
Reader interaction is an important consideration when you decide which posts you want to showcase. In terms of selection, this particular aspect will favor older posts over newer ones, because posts collect comments over time.
2. A post has many backlinks
A ‘backlink’ is a link on someone else’s site that leads to your own. These links are very important for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The more backlinks a particular post has, the higher the main keyword of your post will rank in search engines.
3. A post has triggered a lot of Tweets, Facebook ‘likes’, or has rated well on other social media
Most plugins don’t factor this in when they determine the popularity of a post. But it is something a blogger should take into consideration.
4. A post has attracted large visitor numbers
If a post goes viral, it will trigger a large number of visitors.
‘Pillar’ posts are articles that express the core topic of your blog. They are posts that people link to long after you’ve published them.
When you determine which posts to choose as ‘popular posts’, it’s important to consider adding some of your ‘pillar posts’ – even if they were not wildly popular at the time you published them.
Often, pillar posts rank well on Google and will bring new readers to your blog.
The easiest – but not necessarily the best -way to place your favorite posts in the sidebar is to use a WP plugin. Here is a list of widely-used plugins:
WP -Popular Post Tool This plugin uses only the number of comments as a marker.
Popular Posts This is a good plugin but can be tricky to get to work. It needs the WordPress.com Stats plugin as well.
Popularity Contest This is a great plugin that analyzes popular posts in a variety of ways. The only thing I don’t like is that the widget that’s part of the plugin shows the popular posts with percentages.
One way to work with this plugin is to use the popularity stats as a guideline and manually put the links into the sidebar. Activate it only every few months to see whether your ‘favorite posts’ list is still correct. Then deactivate it again. When active, it produces an annoying popularity ranking below each post.
I think plugins that determine your most popular posts are important. But I suggest that you make the final selection yourself, based upon the information provided by a plugin. The reason is that this way, you have control over your brand. What kinds of posts do you want to promote? Which posts reflect the flavor of your blog? Your personal selection of ‘best posts’ is important and shouldn’t be delegated to a plugin.
Every three months or so, activate the Popularity Contest plugin, look at your stats, and check that your list of ‘best’ or popular posts is current.
Author: Mary Jaksch