Many blogging and social media experts recommend including a page on your blog’s main navigation bar listing your best-ever posts.
This “Best of” or “Greatest Hits” page could include posts that have gotten more page views than anything else you’ve ever done or the posts that got the most comments. Or maybe they’re the posts you’re the most proud of having written. For an example, here’s small business blogging expert Chris Brogan’s “Best of” page.
I had such a page, called “Best of WordCount” on the main navigation bar for sometime. As best of lists go it was no great shakes. As I got ready for the final days of this year’s blogathon, the community blogging event I host every May, I forced myself to create a better one. I think it turned out pretty nicely; see for yourself: the new WordCount Greatest Hits page.
How to Create a ‘Greatest Hits’ Page
In case you’re interested in creating a best of page for your blog, here’s what I did:
- I broke down what I blog about into four categories: blogging, writing, freelancing and tech tools for writers.
- For each category, I went through everything I’d ever written on that topic and picked out 25 standouts, either because they generated a ton of traffic, got a lot of comments, were on timely – or timeless – subjects, or did a good job of addressing what I felt was an important issue.
- I organized each list of 25 posts so they went from very basic to increasing more sophisticated material.
- I wrote the subheads, checked the links and the list was ready to go.
Why You Need a ‘Greatest Hits’ Page on Your Blog
Besides driving traffic, there are other benefits from adding a best of page to your blog:
1. In addition to your bio or resume, it’s a great way to introduce new readers to who you are and what you write about. If you use Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook for business, include a link to your “Best of” or “Greatest Hits” page on your social network profiles.
2. Having such a list can help establish yourself as an expert in LinkedIn’s Answers section, or at least help you identify yourself as a journalist who’s written about that area.
3. A quick scan of your “Best of” list can reveal where you’ve got holes in topics you cover on a regular basis, which should help give you ideas for future blog posts
4. Compiling a list of posts on a subject can be the first step toward organizing material for an ebook.
5. If you are planning to write ebooks, you can see what material you already have and what you still need to write.
6. If you’ve been blogging for a while, it feels great to look back and realize how much you’ve accomplished.
In case you missed it before, here’s a link to my Greatest Hits list.
If you’ve created a “Best of” or “Greatest Hits” page, how did you decide what to include, and where is it on your website or blog?
Another brill post. Definitely a great idea that we’ll be looking to incorporate soon in to Lunchbox World – when things quieten down a little, although currently orders are on the up and up! Thanks, I’ll keep checking in though x
I’ve begun doing greatest hits pages by subject areas I cover at Music Road. Mulling over doing an overview one, so to speak, when I’m finished with those. Decided to do it this way because seemed to me that it’d be a good way to teach, as well as to reinforce me as an expert.
here’s the first one
http://musicroad.blogspot.com/2011/06/learning-about-irish-music.html
also, when I did a year long virtual road trip across the US through music, I did a sort of greatest hits page for those posts to draw that to a close
http://musicroad.blogspot.com/2011/03/road-trips-and-road-songs.html
both of these have drawn quite a few readers, new and old.
thanks for the ideas on other things to be learned from doing this sort of post.
Kerry, what you’re doing is the equivalent of a wiki on subject XYZ – very smart, and something that savvy news organizations are doing. For example, news organizations like the New York Times and CNN now have compilation pages on current issues (Arab Spring), famous public figures, etc., so when they run a news story on a related subject, they can include a link to their wiki page on that subject in a sidebar or list of related links. It gives them additional content to flesh out a story, and it also helps establish them as an authority in the field. There’s no reason why smart journalist bloggers can’t do the same on a smaller scale.
Michelle
Michelle,
all the links on these pages are to posts I’ve written, though, which would seem to me to make them fall rather more in the greatest hits area. Not so?
Not sure I understand your question. Can you rephrase?
Michelle
I think this is a great idea. I like the way Copyblogger.com uses his navigational tabs to bring readers to a “greatest hits” page on selected topics (he calls it XXXtopic 101). I’ve been thinking of doing something like that on a few of my blogs.
I’ve started steering new readers to the Greatest Hits page from a welcome message they see on the front page. The welcome message is a WordPress add on called WWSGD, short for What Would Seth Godin Do?, named after the well-known Internet marketing whiz. The add on allows me to show one message to new readers and a different one to anyone who’s been to the site more than 4 times. It let me suggest different things to different people based on their familiarity with the site and the subjects I write about.
Michelle
Oh, so that’s what the references on Twitter to “What Would Seth Godin Do?” are all about. Now I get it 🙂
Sounds interesting and definitely worth checking out. Thanks!