I like to challenge conventional wisdom. So here’s a question.
Has anyone actually made money or acquired LOTS of sustainable traffic with Blog Post Trending?
As many of you know, I’m incredibly lazy. I only do things when I know they work. I adopt technologies late. I just got my first cell phone (an iPhone) about 2 weeks ago. Why? Because up until now cell phones seemed like more of a burden than a help. I don’t leave my house very often and I’m much more productive when I’m not answering the phone all day. But the iPhone offers me some things I actually needed for the sake of productivity…and I was sold.
I guess that’s a tangent. But the fact is that I’ve never really put much effort into writing about trends. I’ve also not pressured my writers to write about trends.
Am I making a mistake? I see loads and loads of people posting about things like “Christmas Gift Suggestions For The Green Enthusiast” or “Must Have Mobile Products For 2008” but I guess I just wonder if those kinds of posts are themselves…well…trendy.
When it comes to blogging, some fads stick but most fads pass away. I’ve been at this gig long enough to have seen all my friends jump enthusiastically on some blogging trend bandwagon, only to give it up a few months later. See, I wait until I know something is going to be around for a while and prove useful before I adopt.
So what is it? How big of a deal is blog trending? Does it really help? Is it something I should pay more attention to?
10 thoughts on “Does Blog Post Trending Really Work?”
Haha. That’s right. That’s how I operate dude. And if you know me well enough, you know who my “Markus” is (the guy who whispers tips in my ear)
Ryan, your article reminds me of a friend who is always miles behind every technical trend. He didn’t see the advantages of telefax and he didn’t understand email. But what he does is that he always smiled at me about my interest in technological trends and how I used them. And he calls me up for cheap consulting. Guess who is making more money? He is.
I am in a similar niche to Candy Addict except I write do the healthy food reviews :0) and my Top XX posts or Best XX posts alsways tend to do well. That said, I don’t do them a lot and I use them to tie in past reviews that I have done. In fact they do so well that I wish I had time/ inspiration to write more of those types of posts.
I do get a little sick of seeing posts on “How seeing a deer running in the woods or birds in the sky or some other random act reminded me of blogging” type posts. But that might just be me.
If you have a niche that changes often, I think covering trends is important. However, for more timeless niches like how to play the guitar or health and fitness, it’s not as important to follow trends.
I recently did a “Top 15 Candy Gift Ideas – The Best of the Best Candy of 2007” list. It has gotten a decent amount of good traffic. It makes sense though for my blog to do that though – things like that might not make sense for all blogs. I definitely think everyone should do an end of year post similar to that. Doesn’t matter what your niche, you can come up with a list to summarize the past year of your blog.
Ahmed,
Definitely. And I see the same thing in Celeb niches. I mean…after all…news is trends and trends are news.
I guess the question I’d pose to you is whether it makes sense for you to have an article titled:
“Gift Ideas for Soccer Fans”
Does that work?
trends can help you make a lot of money in newsy niches (i say this from personal experience with Soccerlens).
The most important aspect of a trend is timing. Unfortunately, by the time most people recognize a trend, the parade has passed them by. That’s why, for most people, chasing a trend is a waste of time.
Best regards,
Joan Reeves
Excellent point Deb! It hadn’t occurred to me that trending is like reverse engineering the search logs.
So I think the key is to be selective about the trends that you try to capture. Which ones will turn out to pay off? Is there a way to accurately predict this?
Trends are important because trends give us direction. They tell us what our readers want and the way life is going. I don’t think we “have to” blog on trends, but I think it’s important to know which way life is headed. When I see a rise in trends on certain topics, it tells me this is something people are interested in learning more about.
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