7 Links Challenge

7 Links of Highly Effective Posts

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7 Links ChallengeI have been blogging for a little over 18 months.

This post is my 493rd post.

I did a post a day for year (to the day) and did much of that while traveling through Europe.

My blog on Day One was far-far different than it is today….

A current reader might see a lot of unfamiliar looking stuff in the form of my old “personal development” type of articles, such as “What I Learned from Punxsutawny Phil” and “53 Life lessons of Homer Simpson”  and they may even see the faint beginnings of my current style with articles like “Why I Love Hemorrhoids”.

In the beginning this blog was a lot more about lifestyle.  Slowly but surely, I have turned the topic of this blog into being more about “how to” make the money that then can afford the lifestyle you desire; rather than telling you how to live.  I think it has been a good change.

The reason that I am thinking back to the beginnings of this blog is because of a challenge…  The 7 Links Challenge to be exact.  (Check out that link for the exact rules)

The idea behind the 7 links challenge is simple.  List your top seven links in very specific categories and give a short reason why they fit the topic.

Of course, all of this looking back has gotten me to thinking about where I have been.  This is a good thing.  Before you can go forward, you have to know where you have been.  And what a long strange trip it has been.

7 Links Challenge

My Most Beautiful Post

Honestly, I don’t think of my posts as being “beautiful” either in design or concept.  Perhaps it is Steve Jobs death that has me thinking once again about the beauty and elegance of simplicity.  (After all Jobs was a master of taking ugly clunky ideas and making them into simple and almost beautiful products.)

I have written quite a few articles about affiliate marketing.  Many of them are narrow and specific on different aspects.  The only one that might be considered “beautiful’ is this simple one about, 6 things every blogger should know about Affiliate Marketing.  It is basic and simple.  But hopefully that gives it its own elegance.

My Most Popular Post

What should be a pretty straight forward post topic; actually isn’t.  If you track tweets, comments and total cumulative traffic the top post for each category ends up being a different one.  I chose the one with the most comments, that also happened to be near the top for traffic (prorated since it is a recent post) and has a decent amount of tweets.  Ironically, enough, for a link based on traffic this post is about increasing blog traffic.

My Most Controversial Post

Now this one is an easy one.  I took a topic I wasn’t sure if could even be done and tried to imagine a plan for how to do it.  Of course there was controversy, because while I believe this is the best chance someone could have to earn $1000 in month, I am not sure it is even possible in such a short time span.

My Most Helpful Post

42 Internet Success Habits to Develop  I would to think that this post is “chock full” of good steps to improve both internet success and to a certain degree general “life” success.  Anyone who is able to even improve upon ¾ of these habits will find their success drastically improved.

A Post Whose Success Surprised Me

I am not the type of guy who rants.  I may “rant” in comments on my blog or off, but I leave that to those venues.  I attempt to live in a Zen-like state and don’t often write blog posts when I am “hot”.  This was one of the few blogs where I did write it while still pissed off and judging from the reactions a few people really did like it.  Now I just need someone to make me mad again, so I can have another surprise hit post.  Stupid Guest Post Authors Need not Apply

A Post I Didn’t Feel Get the Attention It Deserved

My license plate reads, “Email4ever.”  I run letters to my girlfriend through Aweber’s spam checker.  I want my tombstone to say, “Build that list”.   Therefore I was surprised that an article that showcased what I thought was some great ways to improve your email marketing was greeted with what seemed like a cacophony of chirping crickets.

I thought 14 was to improve your autoresponder sequence was one of the more important things I had written.  It is the sort of thing I wished I had seen when I first started out, and the reception was…. Meh.

The Post I Am Most Proud Of

While I was joking about the license plate, tombstone and girlfriend spam check thing above.  I really do feel strongly about the importance of building a list.  I think it is essential for success, and I feel I owe much of whatever success I have had to starting list building early.

The other thing I think is highly important is metrics.  I think it is important to get hard data on things you try, to dispassionately analyze that data and then to make changes of what works and what doesn’t work based upon that data.

Like peanut butter and chocolate coming together for the perfect candy in Reese’s Peanut Butter cup, I tried to do that in this article on how to use A/B split to increase email subscribers.

5 Link Shout Outs

Now I’m passing this “link chain letter” on…I’d like to see 5 other bloggers take up this challenge.

Sidebar: I heard that a kid in Sri Lanka was invited to the 7 link challenge and chose not to join in.  The next thing you knew, his house was filled with Trolls.

Now we are not talking about the annoying internet kind of Trolls here.  Neither are we talking about the cute fuzzy kind of Troll that you stick on the end of a pencil! (Do they still make those?)  But the actual gibbering, live under a bridge, flesh tearing monstrosities, straight out of storybook legend.  These are the Trolls that rip off faces and wear them as a hat; with a feather.

So I do hope you all avoid the trolls and join in on this fun challenge.

**Disclaimer:  No actual trolls have been harmed in the making of this post**

My choices for the “7 link challenge” are:

Paul|One Spoon at a Time

Alex|Build|Rank|Profit

Brankica|Blog Like a Star

James|  The Average Genius

Adrienne| AdrienneSmith.net

Tag your it.

Take Action. Get Results.



53 thoughts on “7 Links of Highly Effective Posts”

  1. I was just scrolling down and wondering who you were going to nominate…had I known it was me I might have clicked away! LOL!

    Have you really posted nearly 500 posts in less than 2 years? That’s incredible….I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of your personal development articles as I think I started coming by here in January this year…and you’d already transitioned to the No BS approach.

    I might go read some of those!

    Consider the baton picked up….

    Paul

    • Paul,
      Looking forward to your entry!!

      Yeah, I was a busy beaver for a while. Some of those, of course include guest posts, and some are less than stellar. (A few quickie “what do you think” and a poll) Not all are 1500-2000 word epics. Still I am proud I kept the daily going for a year, and did manage what I think were a few pretty good articles during that time too! 😉

      2-3 a week seems much better to me now, though, with one being a “massive” post.

  2. I’m not worried about the trolls. I’m worried about the 5 people you tagged for the challenge.

    493 posts in 18 months? I wish I could find the energy and time to write even half that.

    • Jay,

      It was quite a bit of writing. I can’t say every one of those posts was a home-run. A few I will admit I wrote simply not to “break the streak” and while I am proud I wrote daily for a year, and happy enough with most of the content that I wrote (and posted…some were guest posts) I would not likely ever hit that frequency again.

  4. 493 posts in two years is nothing to sneeze at. Neither is this list. I really like the idea of creating a list of popular posts and making it a ‘Greatest Hits’ list so to speak. Keep up the good work and congrats on the insane amount of good content you’ve put up in the past two years!

    • Thanks Corey,

      Roundups are great. For a good portion of that time i used to do a weekly round up. (I stopped only a couple months ago) It was fun and a great way to share with others and build traffic. It was niche to do another roundup again. Even though I am not making this a regular thing. Even if it is mostly my own links 😉

  5. Really? This is just plain mean! Cause I just posted a post with links to my own posts 🙂 People are gonna run away like crazy. But you know I WILL do it 🙂

    So you can expect this next week or the one after that (You have to let me have at least a few posts between this and the one I just put up, lol).

    Thanks for nominating me!

    • Haha,

      I forgot that your Outstanding post. It would be best to wait. No rush on it. I think this challenge has been percolating around for a bit, so wait weeks or even a month if you like. 😉 Like I said in G+, I already paid the trolls to stay away.

    • Cristina,

      It had a reaction and it wasn’t “negative”.

      But it really was a little lower than average for that time for traffic, comments, and shares. I was underwhelmed. Perhaps people were too awed by the incredible information to say anything or tell others about it. LOL 😉

      Really, I had a few (what I thought were) strong email marketing posts that I perceived as not really being appreciated, which really does kinda hurt me because I think email marketing is THE KEY to long term success.

      Its OK, though, because I think I will bundle all the email marketing posts up into a report add a little content and maybe sell it for $4.99 or something. And perhaps give it away free to people on my list. We shall see.

  7. Nicely done! And way to use G+ to call out your audience. Challenge accepted, will post it no later than Monday (writing schedule calls). Thanks for the invite…now off to read why it is you love piles…

    • James,

      Take all the time you want. (It took me about 5 days to actually get around to it in my writing schedule too) I think the Challenge has been slowly trickling around the net’ for months now, anyhow, so even a few weeks would work.

  8. Wow Steve,

    I’m in agreement with everyone else. 493 post in two years. Dang!!! I only have 337 and I’m in my second year but I only posted three times a week for the first year and a half then I cut it down to twice a week.

    Yep, I agree with James about great resource to call us lucky 5 out. I’m not sure if this is an honor or not but I’m up for the challenge. I’ll be sure to stick that baby in sometime next month. Certainly don’t want the trolls visiting my place.

    Great list by the way and now I’m going to have to take some time to go through mine to see what I can weed through. This ought to be interesting.

    Thanks Steve for the shout! I’ll let you know when mine is live.

    ~Adrienne

    • Nothing wrong with 2-3 times a week posting! LOL That is what I do now, and i have no inclinations of upping that total. It is nice to have the time to do something else besides just writing content. Like working on the sites that really make me money. My income dipped during that time because I mostly ignored those sites.

  9. Wow Steve that’s a lot of articles. I think I would have to be at home full time to keep up with those stats. I am getting better at writing articles though. Your tips have been very helpful. Keep up the great writing.

    • It is a lot of articles, and “getting better at it” is part of the reason I did so many early on. I was experimenting and (hopefully) improving. I think some of the old articles are good. But I wouldn’t say they are all great. Like any other skill the more you practice writing and look at what you do with a critical eye towards improvment, the better you will get at it.

  10. Hi Steve,

    WoW! I couldn’t imagine how you write 493 posts in just 2 years. And you also get high page rank within that span of time. You are such an inspiration to the newbies. Right now I am thinking what I will be in the next two years.. 🙂

    • It is just a matter of setting a schedule and goals and sticking to it. Daily post are overboard and probably not necessary, but you should try to stick to whatever you decide whether it is three times a week. Once a week. Or once a month.

  11. Hey Steve,

    Great post you got there. I can tell you really love what you do since you easily make this a part of your daily routine. It’s just amazing and I love looking at our blogs on day #1 then as time passes, look at it now. Just so you know, I like your blog and the content in it. That’s what matters most. Keep it up my friend! 😀

    • PJ,

      Thanks for the great comment. I do love it. Though, of course sometimes it is frustrating. As you pointed out that is why a routine helps. In some ways it was easier when I just felt I “had to” post something every day. Not that I am a little bit looser, I almost seem to struggle more with getting it done. LOL

  12. I was wondering when you started posting about your lifestyle did you have more comments then or did you get more comments once you started your “how to ” posts? I love the great points you made about blogging and I will try to same in my blog. Thanks.

    • That is a tough answer to answer. Obviously, I get a lot more with the “how to” posts now. But it isn’t necessarily a fair metric, because I simply get a lot more traffic now too. And not all of that is just dependent on what I write.

      One thing i would say for advice is experiment. Try to do posts of different types and see what your audience responds too. Over time this may help you to find the right type for your core audience and grow it from there.

  13. Hey, nice list Steve! In 19 months you could complete about 500 posts, that’s good. Very few bloggers meet that mark! Congrats. I am now heading on to read the 7 posts mentioned in this post!

  14. This challenge is quite interesting. It is also a tremendous way in encouraging people to write beautiful and helpful blog posts. Thank you very much for posting this information.

    • Extreme John,

      That was my immediate though, what a cool idea for a post. Share some interesting ones and at the same time link to others. Very fun. Have a great Halloween John!

    • Ryan,

      I shudder to think how many articles you have. For a while you were doing a few a day, weren’t you? Bet you have well over 500 anyhow! 🙂

      Thanks for being around so long, and or course your persistance and perseverance are something else also bro!

  16. Congrats on your 493rd post Steve 🙂

    I like the idea of this event. Very interesting! It’s good to see and read the best parts of any blog and learn from those posts. Yours here are very useful as I read some of them before.

    Don’t know if this challenge has some winning prize or not. But as I always learn many new things from your blog, I wish you and your Internet Lifestyle How-to blog all the best man!

    Duy.

    • Duy,

      No prize that I know of, except to have a little fun and link a bunch of old posts (so the prize of interlinking)

      Thanks for your best wishes. Have a great day

  17. Hey Steve
    Found your site on http://www.geeks4share.com/2011/09/list-of-40-high-pr-do-follow-comment-luv-blogs/ and really glad I did!

    I’m now where you were back in the day and am building affiliate blogs to allow me to travel the world in my VW camper. Got my first clickbank cheque just today, so it looks like it works.

    Been experimenting with niches and have four sites so far, dating, health, home improvement and food related – the first three bringing in some income already despite high competition.

    Anyways – looking forward to ploughing through your content – can I just ask – what ONE thing would you advise above all else to someone looking to do what you’ve done?

    Many thanks,
    Samantha

    • Samantha,

      Glad you found me, and of course I hope to see you here again!
      Those first checks are the big thing. It is like breaking through a boundary. You know what to do (for the most part) it is now just a matter of doing it and refining technique.

      Your niche choices are great. All the “buying” topics. Like you pointed out though, one heck of a lot of competition. Hopefully you have narrowed each niche into a sub sub category where you can actually rank and keep that traffic
      —–
      My main piece of advice would be to build a list whenever possible. Looking at your linked site. Since it is a very general “review” site, list building might not work as well.

      But I would still give it a shot. Write an free ebook, where you target what is hopefully the core of your audience. 20-40 yr. old women I would guess at a glance. Then try to create the ebook around some helpful “free” advice for them.
      Once you get them on your email list do not bombard them with offers. set up an auto-responder that gives a few more tips with no more than a link to products in the footer. Occasionally mix in a really informative post and the occasional sales post and have everything targeted to that demographic.

      Like I said, it may not work in the review site as well…because you probably do not get much return traffic there. But it could still be worth a shot. When you are able to build a targeted list, there are few things more effective in my mind.

  19. 493 posts … sounds excellent! Actually this post looks like annual work report) But of course it’s great that you can analyze by yourself what post was the best, what was the most helpful etc.

    • NOw that you mention it, I could have held off for two weeks and made it a “500th” post report that would have been even more of a look back. To late now…oh well. 😉

      Actually the surprising thing is you can’t. I have had posts that I thought were “killer” that really didn’t seem to get a huge reception and posts that I were things I put together on the fly to “get something up” that seemed to do pretty well.

      YOU can guess and hop, but it is hard to be accurate about what others will really like and share.

  20. Hi Steve,

    Nice idea. This is my first comment on your blog and i get to nominate people!

    well here are my top picks:

    Pat Flynn in make money online
    Darren Rowse in Blogging Tips
    Glen Allsopp in Online marketing (his methods are great to observe)

  22. Wow Steve,

    493 in 18 months! That sounds like you are chasing down Barry Bonds HR record slow and steady. Come to think of it that HR record could be indicative of the success of top bloggers. The closer you get to that figure the more successful you will be. Maybe someone can profile that for all the top bloggers.

    Since I m like you posting daily while starting out, I am inclined to ask you at which point did you find that you could no longer keep up with the once a day schedule? I am hitting 100 soon in three months, it sure will help to be mentally prepared for that. What are some of the activities that overtakes posting daily?

    I have read 3 of your 7 most important posts here. Thanks for bring the other into the forefront. Your content provides what I call nitty gritty detail that will help us young bloggers. Have youvever thought about compiling an ebook for us? Maybe a title like Blogging Secrets for Beginners – How to Grow Exponentially in 3 – 6 months. I will surely appreciate that. Make sure you cone up with it before I outrun you.

    • HaHa,

      I actually thought it was like Cal Ripken Junior’s record of consecutive games. In fact my very last post before I stopped posting daily that was a reference I made.

      I probably had a hard time at around the 250th post, but at that point I was far enough in I decided I was going to tough it out to 365. I did that and on my 365th post I announced it was my last daily post.

      100 in 3 months is quite good. you will pass me to keep it up. 🙂 I think it is good to have a nice base of content to get regular traffic. After a while though, you will find that many people don’t check out every single post when you do it daily, simply because they don’t have time. Posting every couple days actually gets a similar level of traffic per post. Of course if you rank older articles does get steady traffic for a long time too.

  23. I am from Sri Lanka. But not a kid 😉 he he
    Looking forward to a future invitation 🙂

    on a serious note, Love the way you highlight the old posts. With one of my earlier blogs I used to have something similar to the something similar to the Oscars, for blog posts towards the end of the year.

  24. Hi Steve,
    Congrats on maintaining such a successful blog and writing 493 amazing posts.
    I like the idea. Its a great way to gather a kind of “best of the best” where you can see best posts of the best bloggers in every niche.

  25. I like your post of step by step to earn $1000 a month, albeit, it is not easy to accomplish to do all the plans you’ve drawn. If we do the right thing, it is only a matter of time to succeed and your plan is very clear and easy to understand but seems not to apply them in the real world 🙂

  26. Holy crapsticks Mr Scott, 493 posts!?!? I think I’m on like 200 or something lame. I have to say that noone I know produces pillar content as often and as consistently as you do, I am suitably impressed my good man!
    Now as for your challenge, I accept it – trolls ‘n all 😉

    • They sneak up on you! lol. I got quite a jump while I was doing a post a day for a year. NOt so much since now that my volume has dropped to 2-3 a week. Thanks for the nice positive comment! 🙂 And make sure to bring a sharp pointy stick to fight off the trolls. 😉

  27. I liken blogging to “pushing shit uphill with the pointy end of a sharp stick”
    Question: Can I use this same metaphoric stick to ward off said trolls? (I really don’t want to have to find another one)

  29. Hey Steve,
    I’m glad I’ve found your blog,
    like your writing style and I see I have a lot to catch up here.
    browsing your list, I have found “internet lifestyle success habits” very interesting.
    Should free up some time to get some reading down.
    Thanks
    Tobi

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