Here I will explain the 25 Paths or models to an Insanely Popular Blog.
The Benefit you will get:
- More Reach
- Better Growth
- More Users
- Engaging Approach
- More Revenue
25 Paths To Increase Blog Popularity
The given screenshot is the progress result of my niche site. I worked on different models and approaches along with experimenting a lot.
From my experience, I have explained 25 paths I have explained are more than enough for your blogging carrier success.
1. The Social Media Runaway Train
Perhaps the most sought after and least frequently attained route to a popular blog is rapid ‘growth from above’ resulting from huge traffic spikes, most frequently originating from Digg.
In this method, you use social sharing as a weapon and share your content on platforms like Digg, Pinterest, Facebook, Diigo, etc
Getting started on this path:
Why You’ve Got to Dig Digg to Get Dugg
2. Grassroots Growth
The most common form of blog growth occurs at the grassroots, where blogs and bloggers at similar levels of development collaborate from the ground up.
The central idea here is that a lot of little links are just as powerful as one big, top-down growth event. This is one of the most community-based approaches, though growth yielded through this route tends to be consistent and slow-burn.
Getting started on this path:
Hansel and Gretel Link-building
3. The Networker’s Model
This route captures the human element of collaboration and mutually beneficial relationships. This kind of collaboration can be used to encourage links, trade favors, advice, social media votes and make friends.
Collaboration has been very important in the growth of Dosh Dosh, for example.
You do email outreach to different site authors and ask them to write a long detailed piece of content. From that content, you get a high authority link.
4. The Advertiser
This model involves kick-starting the path towards building a popular blog by investing in the future. Bloggers who favor the advertising model have keen eyes for ways to get maximum exposure at a minimum cost.
You hire a google ads expert and he runs your campaign on low CPC high result-bearing keywords that drive initial traffic to your blog.
5. The Preview Model
My favored strategies in the early days of my niche site growth, the preview model involves sharing your work with new audiences through guest-posting.
It functions on the assumption that anyone who clicks through your byline probably liked your post, and will therefore probably like the rest of your stuff, too!
He would likely subscribe to your news feed and newsletters along with sharing your content.
You have to find high-traffic news websites and collaborate with them to post your article on their site.
6. The Leverager
A blogger following this route is an expert at using existing ventures to pour support into new ventures.
The impressive thing about this model is that, when done well, it can propel a blog or website forward faster than even the biggest of social media spikes.
A recent example of powerful leveraging was Leo Babauta’s project which he has explained below as well, which seemed to reach 3,000+ subscribers almost immediately on the back of his support.
Getting started on this path:
5 Hard Questions You Should Ask Before Starting a New Project
7. The Inward Model
This content-focused strategy centers around producing quality content and making it easy for your existing audience to propagate your content to new audiences.
Your content becomes more important than ever before, and this model makes it essential that you write content designed to be easy to link to and vote for.
Getting started on this path:
Strategies For Building Content That Goes Viral
8. The Matrix model
Blogs following this model become popular blogs because they seem like popular blogs. They’re value-packed with an active community, and they put care into a professional-level presentation.
Over time, the statistics beneath the surface begin to fall in line with perception.
9. The Scientific Model
Bloggers who like to quantify things are often capable of following some complex formulas when it comes to blog growth.
They work out exactly what kind of benefits are yielded by certain actions, keep detailed records, and break down statistics to see what works and what doesn’t.
While it seems geeky, these bloggers have an intimate understanding of where the real rewards lie, and how to best get at them.
Tim Ferris is one blogger who tends to quantify everything, and it’s one of the factors behind his success
10. The ‘in spite of’ Model
Some bloggers are utter mavericks — they break every rule and do everything bloggers shouldn’t do, and still experience roaring success.
They might insult their audience, go on an extended hiatus, stir up controversy for fun, or write for themselves rather than an audience.
And still succeed in spite of all of that, usually because the strength of their ideas shines through regardless (whether you agree with them or not!).
Not everyone succeeds in this type of approach.
11. Marching Ever Onwards
Some bloggers shepherd a blog towards popularity through sheer tenacity alone. They’ll continue to blog through hardship, creative burnout, criticism, plateaus, and a lack of motivation.
They aren’t always brilliant, but they never give up, and they never take their foot off the accelerator.
To adopt such an approach you have to do lengthy case studies, experiment with your failure, and keep moving.
12. The Strategist Model
Some bloggers spend more time with a whiteboard or notepad than they do actually writing content, and dedicate more words to outline a growth strategy than they do to actually writing content!
Some of the world’s most popular blogs are the result of detailed planning and clever strategies.
They mapped out a route toward popularity, and only had to put one foot in front of the other.
Getting started on this path:
Pocket-Sized Guide To Blogging
13. The Learner Model
Some of the world’s best bloggers, now teachers, were once voracious learners.
They succeeded because of a depth of knowledge nobody else has usually gleaned from extensive experience.
ProBlogger.net is a fine example of this method: nobody in the world knows more about blog monetization than Darren Rowse, so it really wouldn’t matter if he didn’t have the other pieces of the puzzle in place.
14. The Experimenter Model
Some blogs are propelled to great heights by fearlessness: the bravery required to experiment with content types, to throw out what doesn’t work and embrace what does, to admit when they’re wrong and be proud when they are right.
Such blogs often re-invent themselves multiple times, but take a loyal audience with them all the way.
15. The Innovator Model
An innovative concept that strikes a chord seems to turn a blog into something more than that — it becomes viral.
A new, fresh, and interesting idea can propel a blog into the stratosphere, even if the execution isn’t stellar. There are countless examples, but one making waves recently are Stuff White People Like.
Getting started on this path:
Use Silo Structure – It works best in the current blogging era.
16. The Audacious Model
Audacious bloggers approach popularity as inevitable. They’re not afraid to reach out and claim it.
They’ll ask for things, expect favors, and put themselves out there in order to get noticed. This route is fueled by confidence. Audacious bloggers try things other people assume to be impossible and often succeed.
Getting started on this path:
Write an amazing piece of content that is going trendy and reach out to big site owners via email marketing or contacting them on their social handles and getting links.
17. The Cult of Personality Model
Some bloggers are propelled to popularity, in whole or in part, because people adore them.
They’ll support anything they do, read anything they write, and look for opportunities to give something back.
Readers who adore you will go out of their way to share your content with others. A piece of general news is usually a lot of hard work on behalf of the blogger: being insanely useful is the best way to get people to like you.
Getting started on this path:
Write about the latest trending news, argue on it, and encourage our audience to comment. You can find these tactics in Get Links, Subs, and More Comments.
18. Who You Are
Some bloggers seem to succeed wholly on the: “Whoa, that person has a blog?” factor. While there’s surely a reason Zach Braff averages 1,000+ comments on each post he writes, I suspect it’s not because of his value-packed content.
That people like Robert Scoble and Seth Godin have followings is almost inevitable: who they are and where they’re positioned makes them worth watching. Unfortunately, this is a path most of us can’t hope to take.
You can also grow like a brand in your own niche and it all starts with writing who you are.
You will get help in starting this model from “How to write you’re about us page“
19. The Prolific Model
It will produce content that is mainly — but not all — irrelevant for individual readers. Of 24 Lifehacker posts, you might find one incredibly useful and throw out the rest.
But you stay subscribed because of that occasional ability to strike gold.
What is gold to you is another reader’s lump o’ coal, and vice versa.
These blogs operate on the assumption that if you throw out enough content, some of it has to be good — and judging by their success, Gawker readers agree! (Gawker is a huge news site)
To work on this method you need a writers’ team that writes 20+ articles a day covering the latest news. The length of the content may be short like 500 words or so.
20. The Outsourced Model
The top 10 most popular blogs in the world (according to Similarweb) are all outsourcing experts.
Big media overlords pay good writers not very much money to produce an endless stream of fresh content and pocket up to a million dollars in advertising profit.
This model is one of the fastest-growing of them all.
While I think some of the most popular blogs using this method don’t pay their writers enough.
I can vouch from experience that Freelance Switch is an example of this model working really well (and fairly) for everyone involved.
If your blog takes off, you could essentially sit back and let your blog run itself while you pocket the leftover revenue, minus the costs of hosting and paying writers.
Such type of models does not require any guest posting investments, they work on the high number of articles you are posting every other hour.
Getting started with this model:
Start hiring cheap writers.
21. Being The First
Some blogs are propelled forwards at great speed simply by being the first to cater to the needs of an under-served niche.
As time goes on, the number and size of under-searched niches decreases, but if you do manage to colonize one the rewards will be considerable.
Getting started with this model:
You have to find niches that are untapped, look at the screenshot given below, where there are only 4 sites present in the SERP results and all of them are from the same website.
22. Breaking News
Social media tends to reward the original source of news. If a story is broken on a particular blog, that’s the blog likely to go popular with the story, rather than those following in the footsteps of news-breakers.
Having industry connections and a network of sources tends to be one of the reasons why news-breaking blogs tend to get popular and stay there.
Gizmodo has at times been the most popular blog in the world, and it also breaks news on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, this model is another difficult route for the average blogger to take. Without established networks, you’ll almost always be beaten to the punch.
23. The Talkative Model
Some bloggers are like the popular kids at school: they enchant people simply by paying attention to them.
This is the favored strategy of prolific commenters and those who build their blog on the back of a well-respected forum profile.
They use their words to rouse curiosity and encourage click-throughs to their blog.
These bloggers tend to be voracious readers in a constant effort to bring their perspective to new audiences.
A lot of bloggers use its alternative way, they post in different forums with their links and encourage people to visit their site.
24. The Giving Model
Some blogs march along the route to popularity by giving, giving, giving: free eBooks, free services, free advice, free goodies, free promotion, and so on.
While it’s good karma, nothing is more popular online than the free stuff people actually want.
If you have free resources, I will advise you to work on this model.
25. The Sculptor Model
Some blogs are like works of art: every element, every word, and every link is there for a reason.
Each post seems as if it must have taken hours to create, that it must have been checked a dozen times for imperfections, and each one promptly ironed out.
Engaging with something created with the utmost care and attention is a unique experience — one that’s difficult to avoid being captivated by.
Coding Horror is an example of every element being carefully crafted to great effect.
Pro Tip: Now you all 25 paths but don’t know how to make a website user-friendly, it’s not going to worth it. That’s why we have provided with a detailed post on How to Create a Minimalist Website or a Blog.
People Also Ask
What Are The Important Pages On A Blog?
There are some important pages that you should include on a blog according to the model you are using.
- Homepage: This is the main page of your blog and is typically the first page that visitors will see. It should include a summary of the most recent posts, as well as links to your popular or featured content.
- About page: This page should provide information about the blog and its authors, including their background, mission, and contact information.
- Contact page: This page should provide a way for readers to contact the blog’s author or the blog’s support team.
- Archive page: This page should provide an easy way for readers to access past posts and content organized by categories, tags, or dates.
- Search page: This page should provide a way for readers to search for specific content on the blog (you can skip this one)
- Privacy Policy page: This page should provide information about how your blog collects and uses personal information, as well as their policy on cookies and data sharing.
- Disclaimer page: This page should provide information about the blog’s content and any affiliate or sponsored links.
- Sitemap page: This page should provide an overview of the blog’s structure and the links to all the pages and posts on the blog, making it easy for the users to navigate. (you can generate a sitemap with a tool or plugin)
- Services/Products page: This page should provide information about the services or products that the blog or the author provides.
- Subscribe page: This page should provide a way for readers to subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed or newsletter.
These are the most common pages, but depending on the purpose of your blog, you might need to add some other pages as well. For Example, a local SEO site must have service pages as well.
