When I had Unique Blog Design redesigned my blog last month, one of the things I wanted to have was a popular articles section. Not only did I wanted such a feature but I wanted it to standout and be very highly visible to the readers. The reason I wanted a popular articles feature is not only to highlight some of my best and most popular posts. If done correctly, a popular articles section can make you money.
Popular Posts Help Sell Post Level Text Link Ads
Popular posts tend to be older posts so chances are good they will have Google PageRank. If that is the case, the pages will be listed for Post Level Text Link sales by Text Link Ads. If you’re not a TLA publisher, then you have to sign up before selling post level links.
The fact that I had highlighted some posts in the popular articles section will be an extra incentive for an advertiser to order a post level link in those posts because of the extra traffic they get. CashQuests purchased three post level links that were listed in the popular articles and received over 750 clicks for their $17 investment. If the three posts were not listed in the popular articles section, they would not have received so much traffic.
Knowing this to be the case, you can arrange it so all popular articles are posts with high PageRank. If you’re evil, you can change the posts to something else once the post level links are sold. However, I like to leave the post up in the popular section for at least a month.
Popular Posts Help Promote Affiliate Deals
A reader with a sharp eye will noticed that four of the current popular posts promote some kind of affiliate deal. Using a popular section is a good way to extend your affiliate sales. Generally, once a post goes off the front page, it will no longer makes you money. When I first posted the review of the SEO book, I sold a dozen copies within the first two days of the post going live. Since then, sales has been zero – until I added the post to the popular articles.
Unfortunately, the only way to add a popular articles section to your blog is by a redesign or modifying your current template. I do not believe there is a user adjustable popular post plugin for WordPress. It would be great if someone made one. I would blog about it.
If you don’t want to pay the cost of a redesign, then you should enter my RSS contest. One of the prizes is a $750 complete WordPress blog redesign by Adriann Pienaar of Adii. The winner will get a custom, unique blog design (unlimited revisions by the client). The design will be supplied to the winner as a widget-ready WordPress theme. You can see some of Adriann’s work here. Make sure you have him add a popular articles section!
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I am adding an option to subscribe to my RSS via email. This is a really cool way to subscribe. Enter your email address into the subscription box below, then confirm the confirmation email. Once you’ve done that, you will receive all my future post deliver right to your email box! Even if you already subscribed and read my blog with a RSS reader, you will want to give RSS by email a try. It’s really cool.