Top Posts for July 2010

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Following my own advice from yesterday’s post on How to Keep Your Blog Posts from Dying in Your Archives, I decided to post a list of my top posts for July 2010. Interestingly, although I wrote three of these posts more than a year ago, they continue to be topic traffic generators.

wordle-graphic-for-July-2010.png

Graphic courtesy of Wordle.net

In case you missed them, here are my top 10 posts for July 2010 in order of descending page views:

If you are just getting started with Evernote, I suggest that you buy Brett Kelly’s remarkably practical e-book, Evernote Essentials, Second Edition. It is worth setting aside a couple hours to work through this brief, 95-page book. It will save you DAYS of learning Evernote on your own.

  1. Writing a Winning Book Proposal
  2. Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
  3. The Most Important Part of Your Story
  4. Don’t Wrestle with Pigs
  5. How to Better Track the Tasks You Delegate
  6. Leadership and Forgiveness, Part 2 (see also Part 1)
  7. Literary Agents Who Represent Christian Authors
  8. Avoiding the Tyranny of the Urgent
  9. Creating a Life Plan
  10. Who Are Your Trusted Advisors?
Question: If you are a blogger, what was your top post for last month?
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Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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  • http://www.berkerblog.blogspot.com SueB

    I love this concept and will introduce it into my blog as soon as I get my husband home from the hospital. I truly appreciate the information you present on your blog. I'm just a wife, mother, grandmother – not a high-profile anything and yet your thoughts can most times be helpful and meaningful to me, too. Please keep on sharing with us.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/michaelhyatt Michael Hyatt

      You can count on that. I can’t help myself!

    • http://www.davidbmclaughlin.com davidbmc

      SueB, I hope your husband is ok and will say a prayer for him and you.

  • Pingback: Tweets that mention Top Posts for July 2010 -- Topsy.com

  • http://www.danieldecker.net Daniel Decker

    Great stuff. Curious… when you are looking at your post traffic and top posts are you looking at Google Analytics or something else?

    For me, my top post last month was:

    "5 Questions with Chris Brogan (His Greatest Obstacle and Guilty Pleasure)" http://www.danieldecker.net/2010/07/5-questions-w…

    Top partly due to Chris tweeting a link to it, which I am thankful for. :)

    A close second (heavily from search traffic) was:
    "25 Free eBooks & Manifestos for Business, Marketing, Blogging, Ideas, Productivity and More." http://bit.ly/25free-ebooks

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/michaelhyatt Michael Hyatt

      Yes, this was just from Google Analytics. It is under the Top Content section. Actually, my About page was my fourth most popular page, but I eliminated that from the mix, because it wasn't exactly a post. It does show, however, how important your About page is!

      • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/danieldeckernet Daniel Decker

        Yeah my about page was #3. I need to work on mine though. :)

        • http://intensedebate.com/people/success2you John Richardson

          Yikes… my about page was number 52. I guess I need help or name recognition or something??

          • http://intensedebate.com/people/michaelhyatt Michael Hyatt

            Is it the page you link to on your Twitter profile? That will help. I have a special About page that I use as a Twitter landing page. It's titled, “About @MichaelHyatt.”

          • http://intensedebate.com/people/success2you John Richardson

            Thanks for the great idea! I'll have to set a specific Twitter one up. Currently Twitter is pointed at my main page, but a Twitter specific page would be so much more helpful for visitors. I like how you have your most popular posts listed. Good stuff!

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/success2you John Richardson

    Interesting post, Mike. Looking at your list, it seems your core visitor is interested in publishing followed by interest in two timely personal development posts from the month. Since your Rework posting involved a book giveaway, it makes sense that it would rate higher than some of the others.

    On my blog my three top posts for the month are perennial favorites…
    1. Goal Setting Toolkit (http://bit.ly/cVAurj )
    2. Instant Garage Sale (http://bit.ly/cjy8LH )
    3. Five Minute Flowchart (http://bit.ly/9tIWqZ )
    What is really interesting (and maybe a little depressing) is that my top current post from the month is way down in 22nd spot. I guess I need to work on better engagement from my audience??!! Since my top three posts all have free downloads, they seem to get bookmarked and passed around more.

    Here is a question for you, Mike. What is your highest traffic month? Mine is always January, since everyone is interested in goal setting and New Year's resolutions (at least for two weeks or so). I would think yours would probably be the same, but since your focus is leadership it might be September with back to school and back to work. I guess the question is… what is the top leadership month?

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/michaelhyatt Michael Hyatt

      I think my Reader Survey is probably a better gauge of interest, but this is something to watch.

      Yes, January is always my best month, too. Thanks.

  • http://www.MindingGaps.com Thomas Lee

    Glad you asked! Mine was "The Power of We Is the Power to Lead." It appeared on July 14 on my blog at http://www.MindingGaps.com. Just scroll down.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/Geoffreywebb Geoff Webb

    I definitely see some of my perennial favorites in your top 10 list from last month, so I'm sure I contributed to those numbers somehow!

    After my Homepage, About page, and Speaking page my top post was one I posted in March – "Why Every Leader Should Take an Improv Class": http://geoffreywebb.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/why-…

    My top post from the month of July was next – "I See You" about being present with people: http://geoffreywebb.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/i-se…

    I'm still on wordpress.com (can't wait to move to self-hosting and get more freedom) and with my current theme it's hard to distinguish top posts – you can read the whole post on my homepage and never have to actually go to the page. So my homepage came in at an order of magnitude above everything else.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/michaelhyatt Michael Hyatt

      Doesn't even WordPress.com have the ability to display excerpts only on the home page? It might be worth taking a look at. (It's usually the “more” tag, which splits the posts.

      • http://intensedebate.com/people/Geoffreywebb Geoff Webb

        You're absolutely right, but unfortunately the theme I chose (iNove) doesn't offer that option. Instead of tinkering with another theme right now (which I could easily get sucked into), I'm devoting my efforts to making the jump. Thanks!

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/MichaelDPerkins MichaelDPerkins

    I'm glad you did this. I hadn't thought about showcasing popular posts this way. To be honest your blog has been a wealth of information the last 2 days. Thank you.

    My top post was God Uses Blogs & Twitter http://ow.ly/2ki1f

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/michaelhyatt Michael Hyatt

      Thanks for your kind words, Michael. I appreciate them.

  • http://bondchristian.com/ bondChristian

    My top post was "When bums beg: 10 reasons to give."

    These best-of posts are interesting. I never do them on my blog because I don't want to crowd up my RSS stream with posts that don't add value… but interestingly enough, I usually enjoy these posts from other bloggers. Hmm….

    -Marshall Jones Jr.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/MichaelDPerkins MichaelDPerkins

      I kind of feel the same way Marshall. There are a lot of posts that I'd like to do, but I just don't think they fit in.

  • http://www.facebook.com/TimothyFish Timothy Fish

    My top post for some time now has been How to Describe Beauty. It is actually more popular than the home page for the blog. Third on the list is Review: WestBow Press. But people seem to be interested in creating an outline and writing a synopsis because An Example Book Outline and A Sample Synopsis are next on the list.

    • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/anthonyharden Anthony

      How interesting. The top post so far on my fledgling one month old blog is WestBow Press. It’s actually about one of the two books you discuss in your post of similar title. http://anthonyharden.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/wes…

      • http://www.facebook.com/TimothyFish Timothy Fish

        Anthony,Maybe you would care to respond to the question in the comments to my post concerning the covers. I forwarded the question to WestBow Press at the time and they didn't even acknowledge my e-mail, so I answered it with a best guess, but maybe you can provide a better understanding.

  • http://videoworshipbackgrounds.com Daniel

    I've always loved the "Don't Wrestle with Pigs" post. My granddad had a similar saying about getting the wrong people off the bus. "Don't try to teach a pig to sing. You'll waste your time and the pig will just get mad."

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/michaelhyatt Michael Hyatt

      The funny thing about this is that the post only took about 10 minutes to write. I saw it as a “throw-away.” You never know!

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/mosaicmercy David Knapp

    Twitter’s Top 10 Most Followed Christians: http://wp.me/pXVce-1It

    You are #6 1/2 :-)

  • http://betterlifecoaching.wordpress.com/ Darren Poke

    My top post for the month was “5 tips for Your First Day at Work.” http://betterlifecoaching.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/5-tips-for-your-first-day-at-work/

    My “About Darren” page was even higher.

    My blog is still only a few months old, so it will be interesting to look back again at the end of the year to see what’s popular.

    Love your work Michael, cheers, Darren

  • http://www.bigb94.webs.com Brandon

    How did you get all the words to show up like that? That's a great idea! My top blog for this last month was "Going the Opposite Way". Here is the link to it:
    http://bigb94.webs.com/apps/blog/