PB104: 4 Of My Most Viewed Blog Posts This Month and Why They Worked

Note: this episode is available to listen to in the player above, on iTunes and Stitcher.

A Walk-Through of Reasons Why My Recent Top Posts Have Done Well

Today I’m going to talk about some posts that have worked for me in the last month on Digital Photography School, my main blog.

This episode comes about from a question received by one of our readers, Matthew. He asks if I could walk through a number of posts that have recently done well and why they have worked.

We have done this before on the blog and it worked really well, so let’s try it for the podcast.

In the last month, these four posts have all been in the top 20 on Digital Photography School. I checked Google Analytics for the most read posts, and I tried to pick ones that I haven’t talked about in the past.

In Today’s Episode 4 of My Most Viewed Blog Posts This Month and Why They Worked

• 21 Settings, Techniques and Rules All New Camera Owners Should Know
  • Written in 2010. It’s always been a strong performer. Over 100,000 views this month. It’s shareable.
  • It’s a sneeze page – it links to 21 other posts
  • Topic – good big picture overview
  • Generates a load of page views
  • Makes a bit claim
  • Generates curiosity
  • Gets a lot of shares – over a million, people recommend this post to beginners they know
  • Feature image – has been tested and honed, something our readers love about dials works great on social because it signals topic and builds reader anxiety/curiosity
  • This post promotes our course which solves a problem
  • What we could do better – specific opt-in for the post
  • Better formatting – looks a bit tired
  • Replicate this format for specific niches of photography
• 11 Stages That Every Photographer Goes Through
  • This was written by James Maher a guest writer. I had reservations about this post. It wasn’t a tips post.
  • It was written tongue in cheek a humour story
  • It didn’t have a “hero” image or hit the inspiration angle
  • It worked because it was relatable – I shared on facebook with a question of which stages do you relate to?
  • Touches on a pain point, stage 6 everything sucks
  • Key lesson – you don’t have to always solve a problem, you can create content that shows the reader you know where they are at and can relate to that
• Everyday Carry – Must-have Tools for Photographers
  • This one surprised
  • Bulk of our articles are tips related
  • This is an accessory or gear article
  • Writer put all of these things in a small tin, which created a strong visual
  • The items were affordable and accessible
  • We claimed must have tools – the word tools works well
  • The post has a hack/DIY perspective
  • EveryDayCarry – is a movement that people are obsessive about, possible share on EveryDayCarry forums
• How to Make Colors Pop in Your Portraits – Without Using Photoshop
  • I had a feeling this would work well
  • It connects with something people want to make their photos pop
  • It has strong visuals – uses beautiful images with gorgeous kids and color which would be great for sharing
  • The topic – Photoshopped images can be a polarising topic to photographers, some think of using Photoshop as evil, a technique that makes a claim to not use Photoshop will attract readers in that segment
  • Simple but useful techniques

How did you go with today’s episode?

We would love to hear from you. Let us know why you think these posts did well and share your most popular post. I wouldn’t mind doing a future podcast on the topic of your most popular posts, so share one and why you think it did well.

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