Thanks to an idea from Michele McGraw on ways to prep your blog before an event, I decided to do two lists for newer readers as well as people I meet at Blog World Expo later this week.
This first list is a compilation of the top posts on Kikolani, as determined by PostRank‘s engagement analysis. Without further ado, here are the posts readers have engaged with the most.
Series
- Fetching Friday
Many great posts over the last year have been from my Fetching Friday series, where I compile the best posts of the week throughout the blogosphere on a variety of topics, including blogging, social media, SEO, personal development, and more. - Benefits of Blogging
This five part series covers the benefits of blogging, including having a worldwide audience, building a community, strengthening your interests, learning Internet marketing skills, and becoming an authority in your niche.
Blogging Tips
- 5 Types of Video Posts for Bloggers
This post includes five types of videos and video posts that bloggers can incorporate into their blog to enhance their blogging content. - Finding Your Blogging Inspiration
This guest post by Tony Teegarden helps you find the inspiration necessary to propel your blogging efforts forward in a purposeful manner. - How to Sound Like You Know What You’re Blogging About
This guest post by Tia Petersen talks about establishing yourself as an authority in your niche among your readers by earning their trust and then keeping it. - 5 Bad Reasons to Quit Blogging
Here are some of those common roadblocks in the blogging path, and a few suggestions on how to get past them.
Blog Marketing
- The Case For and Against Popup Opt-In Forms
In light of the growing popularity of Popup Domination popup opt-in forms are, pardon the pun, popping up all over. Here are the reasons why bloggers are using them, why visitors dislike them, and some alternatives. - Increase Traffic and Authority By Listing Your Blog
Learn how to increase your blog traffic and authority by submitting your blog to blogging communities and ratings sites, as well as adding your link to social profiles, forums, and links. - Why Your Blog Needs a Mailing List
Here are some great reasons to have a mailing list for your blog, plus some best practices for newsletters and opt-in forms. - Unlock Your Marketing Genius
This guest post by Leo Dimilo shows you essential Internet marketing strategies for bloggers who want to make money online.
Commenting
- Valuable Commenters vs. Comment Spam
How blog owners can determine comment spam from genuine comments from link builders, and how link builders can get their comments approved. - How Blog Commenting Makes a Difference
How blog commenting can make a difference in getting exposure for your site, and also a few commenting pet peeves. - Reasons to Love CommentLuv Blogs
Reasons to love CommentLuv blogs, and how to get the most out of them as a commenter, blog owner, and blog reader.
SEO
- 7 SEO Mistakes That Could Harm Your Blog
This guest post by Nitin Aggarwal covers 7 mistakes in SEO that could harm your blog in terms of rankings and user experience. - Keyword Research for Blogging
This guest post by Benjamin Sappey shows you how to find great keywords for your blog (and blog posts) using Google Keywords Adwords Tool and analyze with Market Samurai and SEOMoz Keyword Difficulty. - Google PageRank Update – Internal Pages and Top Content Analysis
This post contains analysis of some top content in terms of traffic, comments, social sharing, and incoming links in relationship to the April 2010 Google PageRank update.
Social Media
- 8 Ways Businesses Should Use Social Media
Think beyond simply promoting your business – here are eight ways that businesses and public figures should be using social media. - How to Write a Clearly Defined To Do List
Here are some ways to clearly define your social media to do list to make it more manageable and accomplish-able. - Becoming More Accessible in Social Media Networks
There are many benefits to being easily accessible on social networking sites in terms of building name / brand recognition and community. Learn about the benefits and ways to be more accessible on social media. - Getting Overwhelmed? Get Organized!
Information overload is all too common in the world of social media and blogging. Here are some ways to organize your sources to keep them under control. - StumbleUpon Etiquette Faux Pas, Tips & Resources
StumbleUpon etiquette faux pas, StumbleUpon tips, and StumbleUpon resources to make your Stumbling experience rewarding.
- Twitterfeed, HootSuite RSS, and Blog Post Scheduling
How to setup your favorite blogs’ RSS feeds to update your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other accounts, and why your blog post schedule matters. - HootSuite for Blogging – Twitter Management Guide for Bloggers
How bloggers can setup HootSuite for the best experience in Twitter management for promotion, monitoring, keyword tracking, and reputation management. - Twitter Direct Messages: Best and Worst Practices
Examples of the common types of automated Direct Messages sent through Twitter, plus your thoughts on the types of DM’s you prefer and despise. - Twitter Lingo and Tips for New Users
What you need to know on Twitter when you start out to make it a rewarding experience.
What is PostRank?
PostRank calculates blog post engagement based on the number of comments and social shares through Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Buzz, Delicious, Digg, and several other social networks. The best part it rates your posts in relation to your other posts, not other blogs. This means you are not in competition with Mashable whose posts get thousands of shares and comments.
To find your blog on PostRank, use the search bar under Topics. If your blog isn’t listed, it will ask you for your email address to be notified when your blog is listed in their system, and from that point, it will start calculating your engagement score on future posts.
Learn more about using PostRank for social media analytics, as well as how to use it to sort RSS feeds in Google Reader to find the best posts from blogs you are subscribed to.
Your Favorites
There you have it… the most popular posts on Kikolani based on engagement. What are your favorites, and do you have any favorites that were not included on the list? Please share them below in the comments.
Also, be sure to subscribe to Kikolani’s latest posts via RSS or by email, or sign up for the newsletter to keep up to date on the latest posts! And stop by on Thursday for my favorite guest posts that I have contributed to other sites.
About Kristi Hines
Kikolani covers blog marketing and blogging tips for personal, professional, and business bloggers to succeed in search and social media marketing. Kristi Hines is a 
Hi Kristi,
I have never used PostRank before. I’m always interested in keeping up with websitegrader but it seems like bloggrader doesn’t pull in all of the correct counts sometimes. I have been looking for a better way to rank post and this may be the perfect solution. Thanks!
Brian@Charleston Marketing recently posted Best Web Design Tip For Changing Website Features
You’re welcome! PostRank isn’t exact with their numbers either, but pretty darn close. It is great for analyzing what is popular overall on your blog and on others.
I just signed up for PostRank. I think I like it.
There are a lot of tools for absolute ranking, having one for relative ranking is pretty cool.
Dave Doolin recently posted A Little Lesson on the Value of Experience
Like Dave, I’m going to check out PostRank. Thanks for the find Kristi.
John Soares recently posted Setting Writing Priorities — What’s Most Important Now
You’re welcome… I’ve been using it on and off for a while and love the information it offers!
If you decide to go for the full analytics, try coupon code: kikolani. It should extend your trial period from one month to three!
Nice round up Kristi! MY favorite post is “5 Bad Reasons to Quit Blogging”
Vinay recently posted Firefox Seek Twitter Tweep’s Help!
Yes, it’s an oldie but a goodie and still applies!
I’m so glad you made this list! Even though I’m a long-time subscriber, I’ve missed some of these posts. And I’m finding articles that I merely skimmed in the past, but that have new relevance now that I’m rebranding my old blog (On Living By Learning) into a more overtly mommy blog, The Journey Mom. Thank you!
You’re welcome… I’m glad they will come in useful. Don’t miss Thursday’s post where I list out my favorite writing on other sites I’ve been contributing to, especially if you’re looking for SEO and social media advice!
I actually did not know of PostRank, pretty cool deal they going on over there. As far as this top 25 list, its again just chalk full of great phenomenal content Kristi, theres a few I have yet to read
Till then,
Jean
This is like another resources mashup! It’s great. I liked 5 Bad Reasons to Quit Blogging and also, I will be checking out PostRank. Enjoy Blog World Expo!
Andrew @ Blogging Guide recently posted Liar Liar Your Bums On Fire
I love the “7 SEO Mistakes That Could Harm Your Blog”. Most of the bloggers dream about coming up over night, and then turn to these bad SEO strategies that could, and most probably will ruin them, rather than help them.
Iv remember signing on to post rank but never did anything with it. This looks very useful for multiple reasons.
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing recently posted Welcome! Part 5 – The Initial DEDC Network Revealed
Thanks for the roundup, i read 7 SEO mistakes and realized how some bloggers use excessive links and they never care about the negative effects.
I’ve actually considered using PostRank, but in my case I’ll have to postpone this until my blog develops to a point at which this could be productive.
Dan @ SEM Blog recently posted Contact us
that is really neat to see where each of your areas and posts excel.
Hey Kristi,
nice collection. I enjoyed reading the 5 Reasons Why You Should Not Quit Blogging article. I guess the problem why so many people quit blogging is because they were never serious about blogging in the first place.
Julius @ WordPress Search recently posted How to Create a Better WordPress Search
Wow Kristi,
What an awesome resource. We just recently started a blog four our corporate site and I can’t believe how much I am having to learn about this whole other world of blogging and SEO.
I was scanning through the list of these top posts and kept saying, oh, I should know that, and oh, I need to read that one. I easily picked out 10 or more titles that I need to read in the next few days. The 7 SEO Mistakes is going to be the first one, since I am heavily researching that right now. This post will be book marked for reference for sure. Hats off to Michele for this very valuable idea.
Dan@Debt Solutions recently posted Does Debt Settlement Hurt Your Credit Score?
Great Kristi,
I like your post specially few points which you mention and explain very nicely..
* Blog Marketing
* Commenting
* SEO
* PostRank
these terms are well explained and idea for a beginners..
thanks for sharing this with us..
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