5 great examples of popular blog posts that you should know

Reading time: About 2 minutes

This is a mock post. While there is a place for all of these posts, I’m trying to make a point that original blogs are being shut out by formulaic blogs.

1. Let’s Roundup! Original work is a waste of time

Original work is overrated. Heck, I could spend days on a well-thought out article that helps people do something better, but why? All I have to do is take a bunch of other people’s work, come up with a creative way to tie it all together, and slap it into a roundup post.

Here’s the formula: XXX (the more the merrier) unique adjective objects being rounded up unique common characterstic

Example: 35 Creative WordPress Plugins that Saved My Unoriginal Blog

2. Cheatsheets! Never too many

I know I know. There are like, 5 bazillion cheatsheets out there already. But there’s always room for 1 more!

Just make sure it doesn’t look exactly like all the others! Perhaps change the text size. Yea, that’ll do it.

3. Inspiration! Doesn’t require any effort for me or my readers

More unoriginal work! Thank goodness for time-savers that make me rich in subscribers.

Here’s the formula: XXX (the more the merrier) great examples of objects being rounded up with unique common characteristic

Example: 86 great examples of WordPress blogs that use earth-tones

4. Name dropping! I can haz your attention, too!?

Not getting noticed? No problem! Name dropping is another effective way to get attention without the hassle of original work. You can mention popular people or popular blogs, and you’ll get attention from both!

Here’s the formula: XXX (the more the merrier) subject matter area people/blogs that you should be following.

Example: 95 web designers you should follow on Twitter

Just make sure at the end you put “I can haz your attention, too!?”

5. You Should Know! Never over-used call to action

This one’s super simple and super effective. Just add “you should know” to the end of your blog post. End of story.

Get my point?

Unless you’re Abuzeedo doing inspirational posts or Smashing Magazine doing roundups, this is a call to stop using these formulas and think of new ways to add value to your readers and to the community.

  1. Provide a practical how-to
  2. State strong opinion
  3. Research something new and report it
  4. In some way teach readers something
  5. Do smaller, detailed roundups for a specific cause

That is the extent of my rant. If it offended you, please forgive me, and please also start over.

35 comments skip to comment form

  1. Maratonda said— 37 minutes later

    I heartily agree, this is a clever post.

    Thanks for posting it

    #1

  2. Brian Cray said— 52 minutes later

    Thanks Maratonda. :)

    #2

  3. Dave Sparks said— 58 minutes later

    I find it quite annoying that a number of blogs just post nothing but links to other blog articles.

    Interestingly how I found this though

    #3

  4. Brian Cray said— 59 minutes later

    @Dave LOL!

    #4

  5. MacWarlock said— 2 hours later

    Spot on, well said. It’s so frustrating to browse the Delicious popular list and see 95% of the links fall right into the formulas above.

    The most irritating result of these generic posts is that the huge number of linked WordPress Themes/Cheatsheets/People to Follow cranks the noise to signal ratio off the charts. Even if there were decent themes/etc in the list, nobody wants to wade through 30+ of them and pick them out.

    With a trend in many popular websites facilitating fine tune control of the type and target of content, it boggles the mind for these generic sites to jump on the band waggon of dishing large buckets of swill to the masses.

    #5

  6. Sai-Kit Hui said— 2 hours later

    Yeah, they’re annoying, but give credit to the authors of 100+ things YOU HAVE TO KNOW posts. Those look pretty time consuming to write.

    #6

  7. Maratonda said— 2 hours later

    Yes, give credit, but…there’s a limit.
    A retweet posting a shortened URL of a blog aggregating posts from the original blog (and if you do it without permission it’s called link-hijacking) is a bit over the line. :)

    #7

  8. Eli said— 2 hours later

    Hilarious. Almost peed my pants

    #8

  9. Peter Cooper said— 2 hours later

    It’s so frustrating to browse the Delicious popular list and see 95% of the links fall right into the formulas above.

    If that’s the case, then clearly that’s what people want to read – otherwise you’d see the people who ARE posting original insights and creations filling the Delicious popular list instead. For the “middle ground” of bloggers – those big enough to care about traffic, but small enough not to be automatically successful – it’s natural to focus on “what works” rather than being bold.

    #9

  10. Brian Cray said— 2 hours later

    Peter:

    You’re right that there’s obviously a market for it. But are we all to follow in the same exact footsteps because there’s a proven formula for doing so? Sometimes you have to walk the unbeaten path or sail the unexplored waters to find the new world. Know what I mean?

    #10

  11. Peter Cooper said— 2 hours later

    I agree, but typically it’s a very small group that breaks the mold with something fresh that then becomes the proven formula later on (even the popularity of blogging itself was a bit like this, now we see the same with Twitter).

    The sites producing the sort of content you’re talking about were in the minority a couple of years ago (and most of the better ones stemmed from that period) but once it caught on, everyone else wanted to get in on the action.

    I think you’ll naturally see an end to this cycle in the next year or so. There were similar cycles with “review” blogs (often built by people who just wanted to get free gear) and “gaming” blogs over the last few years that petered out. Soon a lot of the webmasters will find they can only earn peanuts in advertising and won’t put in the effort – leaving established sites like Smashing Magazine with a reasonably open field.

    The real question is – what’s the next phase / fad? If you can either start it or get in on it now and hammer away, you could end up with a majorly successful blog that everyone else is copying in a few years’ time ;-) Sadly these things are kinda hard to pick up and luck seems to play a big a part as anything.

    #11

  12. Kris said— 2 hours later

    Well said. I’ve stopped reading the vast majority of those that come through my reader. It’s just not worth it, especially when the majority of them are reposting the same content found in 50 other roundups with 50 other “unique” characteristics.

    #12

  13. Graham said— 3 hours later

    Positive agreement statement.

    Make sure to check out my unrelated blog post at (fakeurl), I hope I will get some clickthroughs!

    #13

  14. Brian Cray said— 3 hours later

    LOL Graham! Love the comment :)

    #14

  15. Patricia said— 3 hours later

    Completely agree! Many of these articles lack any practical information and only over-expose a design trend (in photography, HDR and tilt-shift anyone?) that quickly fall out of favor. I was about to puke if I saw another “best of” HDR showcase on reddit.

    #15

  16. Peter Cooper said— 3 hours later

    Patricia: HDR! I almost forgot all about that fad :) Perhaps you’ve stumbled across an idea for a blog there.. something that tracks upcoming, current, and dying trends in small time internet publishing..

    #16

  17. Andrew Hyde said— 5 hours later

    I’m trying to think of an equalizing comment to match the sensationalism of the examples…

    but first was taken…

    #17

  18. Saud Khan said— 6 hours later

    I personally have nothing against roundups in general – Frankly because I write them myself.

    But I also agree to the discussion going on here, For example:

    Take look at “A-Z of Free Photoshop Plugins and Filters” http://bit.ly/17Iphb @ SmashingMagazine. Look at the Comments (Both the Numbers and the Text), See the Number of Diggs, See Bit.ly info http://bit.ly/info/vKW0g

    Should a post with such comments have this many diggs and tweets?

    I think this is a BUG in today’s social media or probably some sort of new-media-behavior-disorder or disease. And lazy bloggers are benefiting from it, but this does not justify boycotting or avoiding Roundups both as a reader and writer. Evolution takes place for every individual; people will ultimately recognize credible sources, just like it happened with Print, TV and Radio.

    Finally:

    “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it” – Thomas Jefferson

    #18

  19. Dana said— 6 hours later

    At the risk of somebody telling me that my original writing just sucks, it is important to note that my tool aggregator posts have driven RECORD numbers of traffic to my blog. It’s a useful filler. AND I do research every tool before including it. Many tools do not make the list. http://www.crazeegeekchick.com (@crazeegeekchick)

    #19

  20. Jeff said— 6 hours later

    You forgot:

    6. Maximize unique common characteristic with these XXX (the more the merrier) unique adjective objects.

    Example: Maximize your RSS potential in minutes with these 5 WordPress plugins

    #20

  21. Brian Cray said— 6 hours later

    LOL Jeff. My posts that involve multiple items have very specific themes and come with quality explanation, opinion, and commentary.

    I am, nevertheless, guilty of adding commentary on things that exist if you clump that together with the rest of the formulas.

    #21

  22. Ian Young said— 7 hours later

    5. Do smaller, detailed roundups for a specific cause

    Thank you! I don’t want a list of all 348 plugins for WordPress to blog your twitter to your facebook. If I did, I would probably try a Google search. I want the five plugins that are actually worth trying out, and I want you to tell me why you think those five are so good.

    #22

  23. Brandon Cox said— 8 hours later

    Brian, I agree half-heartedly. I’m with you 50%! Maybe there’s a balance. I like those kinds of posts that create reference points for me later. I can catalog them every day, then do a quick search through my bookmarks to find that plugin I can’t quite remember or a list of dark grunge ice cream truck-themed Expression Engine sites, etc.

    Personally, I use my own design blog for the personal opinions, tutorials, etc. and another for nothing but posting links.

    That’s why I’m torn. So I’ve got your back… but I’m kind of at an angle..

    #23

  24. Shannon said— 10 hours later

    You forgot to call something “premium.”

    #24

  25. Ashwin said— 19 hours later

    I respect your thoughts. But still I think these kind of round-up or collection posts are something which people share and bookmark the most. Though sometimes the topic sounds redundant or repetitive, there is always a useful discovery in some of them.

    Again, to do a small review of set of tools or websites, you don’t have to be the Smashing Magazine. Nevertheless, there are many areas still unexplored by Smashing Magazine.

    May be bloggers should take care that all they post doesn’t fall under one of these categories! Otherwise, I feel there is still some space…

    #25

  26. Ashwin said— 19 hours later

    Btw, you have a great blog design! Do you use Thesis?

    #26

  27. courtney benson said— 22 hours later

    Spot on Brian. Seems folks will do anything for that 15 min of fame. The up side is we know they will eventually flame.

    #27

  28. Mantiuxa said— 2 days later

    I am not telling that you’re absolutely right but this post starts discussion. And that’s most important.

    #28

  29. Jens Alfke said— 4 days later

    Why does Smashing get a free pass on the “$NUMBER great $WEB_TOOLS!!!” posts? I got sick of their formula after a few months and unsubscribed from their feed. They may have invented this trend (for all I know), and they do it better than most, but that doesn’t excuse them from running it into the ground. I mean, by this point they’ve got enough posts that they could just keep running randomly-generated “50 Great Smashing Magazine Posts You Must Read” posts and avoid having to write any more original content…

    #29

  30. Mike McEvoy said— 1 week later

    Great stuff. I definitely agree. While there is value in a blog running a post periodically that includes a number of links pertaining to a specific topic, I always look to see what other verbiage is included explaining the topics and the links that are cited.

    An exception that I’ve seen on a few sites that I think still works is the weekly or monthly collection of links around a broad set of topics that becomes more of a “recommended reading” list. Generally this type of post also includes additional insights and useful information beyond just the list of links.

    RE: Smashing Magazine, I would be curious to know the correlation between how many people bookmark the posts and how many of the links in the posts actually get clicked on. I wonder how many people bookmark but never get around to actually reading.

    #30

  31. jeny said— 2 weeks later

    it is very useful method of expressing our thoughts………….

    #31

  32. BloggerDude said— 2 months later

    I don’t know If I said it already but …Great site…keep up the good work. :) I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks, :)

    A definite great read….

    #32

  33. James said— 5 months later

    Really nice list,

    Thanks for Sharing!

    #33

  34. online stock trading guru said— 5 months later

    Hey, I found your blog in a new directory of blogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, anyway cool blog, I bookmarked you. :)

    I’m Out! :)

    #34

  35. Sid said— 7 months later

    Wholeheartedly agree – though the temptation is always there for bloggers to take the easy way out.

    #35

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