People ask me… “How do I get so much traffic to my websites… so easily?”

It’s really quite straight forward. Create the best content possible. That’s what people want.

People go to websites because they want something. It could be to buy something, to learn something, to be entertained by something, or any number of things. The better you are at giving people what they want, the more traffic you will get.

I don’t spend much time working on getting Facebook likes and getting top search engine rankings because it’s quite often the bi-product of great content.

Below I have outlined what you can learn from the 50 articles that send IncomeDiary the most traffic.

1. The articles that get the most traffic are lists… Shock!

Out of my 50 top articles, 35 start with a number. When I write, I write in a way, I would like to read. Being dyslexic, I like to summarize things, make it easy on myself to consume information. That’s why I think I do such a good job with lists.

Here’s 4 examples of top lists:

1. 30 Most Influential People In Blogger
2. 10 Christmas Gifts For Photographers
3. 20 Health Experts To Follow on Facebook
4. 10 Reasons Why It Rocks To Be a Young Entrepreneur

Here’s some examples of my favorite top list titles.

2. Mentioning famous people gets you traffic

9 out of 10 of our top articles mention people in some way.

Think about it this way:

If I wrote an article called: 10 Things Usain Bolt Does To Run Faster

I don’t need Bolt’s permission to write about him, but I get all of the benefits of having his name associated with mine and what it represents about what is written.

Usain is the fastest runner in the world. That means these tips must be the best tips in the world.

If I write about how to run faster, no one will want to listen.

3. Linking out can increase the time someone spends on your website

4 out of the top 5 articles on this website link out to over a dozen other websites. These articles also had noticeably longer visitor times.

Don’t be scared to link out and show some love. If you recommend something or someone and your reader likes where you sent them, then they will end up trusting you more.

4. The title can make or break an article

Something that is made really obvious when I look at my top 50 blog posts is… the title can really make or break an article.

If you are stuck trying to come up with a title of a post, go to the supermarket and look at the magazines. Modify titles of articles to make them relevant to something you want to write about.

5. Motivation beats inspiration and instruction

8 out of the top 10 articles on IncomeDiary are motivational. Here’s the breakdown for the top 50 articles:

• Motivational: 24
• Tutorials: 17
• Inspirational: 9
• Reviews: 0
• News: 0
• Interviews: 0

Motivational, is the type of posts that make you take action and start working.

Tutorials, are articles showing you how to do something. These can often be monetized well by recommending products required to do what you instruct in the tutorial.

Inspirational, is the type of post that gives you ideas.

Reviews, we review products and mention them in our customer autoresponders.

News, often something I would shy away from because it’s not evergreen (always relevant) content. If it gives me a positive ROI, then I will publish them.

It seems people value motivation higher than anything else. It’s not often lacking the skills that holds us back, it’s our work rate. Motivational posts help us focus more on our goals.

Although Reviews and News are not featured in the top 50 posts, they are still a relevant part of my blogging strategy. I just prioritize.

6. Have a content plan

I’m a systems guy. I like to follow a blueprint when I’m doing something because it’s tried and tested, proven to give the best results. I have a doc called Contest Strategy which I send to writers to make sure they have every required to do the best job possible. The better job they can do, the more traffic I get, the more traffic I get, the more money I make. This is some of the information I provide for everyone who writes for us:

• Image sizes
• About the author/Gravatar
• Blog post template
• Post publish time & date
• Post title review
• Post titles swipe copy
• PSD graphic files which writers can edit

7. Articles are worth paying for

A large percent of articles published on IncomeDiary are paid for.

One of the highest performing posts on IncomeDiary was published last year and has so far received 9,883 visitors in the last 30 days & 106,338 visitors in the last year. I paid $120 for that article.

I published a post in 2011 that cost me $100. In 2015 it makes me over $1000 a month.

The easiest way in my experience to get people to write for you is to ask. If asking fails, offer them money. We put together a training video on how we pay people to write our posts.

In this screen shot, you can see that the article is now getting more traffic weekly then it did in it’s first week. I have done nothing to it since the day it was published. None of us are SEO experts. All we focus on is great content and let the universe do the rest of the work 😉

To Conclude:

To write posts that drive lots of traffic, make sure to:

• Write it in a list form, number it.
• Mention people your readers will know, it will draw them in.
• Link out to other websites.
• Write the perfect name for your article. This should be thought about.
• Motivate your reader.
• Keep to a plan & implement.

What type of blog posts are sending you the most traffic right now?

Read next: ‘101 Ways To Get More Traffic’