Want to know a quick, sure fire technique for getting your blog posts read and shared… Write a list post. Yep, it’s true! In fact, when I sit back and look at my content over the last couple of months, it becomes pretty clear to me that it’s a fact that people love list posts. See for yourself, here are the stats:

12 Ways To Improve Your Marketing in 2011 (26 ReTweets | 18 Facebook Shares | 11 Comments)

15 Ways To Market Your Blog Effectively (80 ReTweets | 7 Facebook Shares | 17 Comments)

13 Must Have WordPress Plugins for Every Website (69 ReTweets | 5 Facebook Shares | 25 Comments)

Do you know what makes list posts such a traffic magnet?

• They’re scannable – Heck, I’ll admit it…I have a short attention span and when I’m on the web, I tend to skim through lots of content. A list post is easy to scan and read through because everything is neatly organized into a detailed list.
• They succinct – A lesson I learned from The Big Lebowski: Brevity Rules! In a list post, each point has a beginning and an end with no rambling in the middle. Everything is delivered in detail and on point.
• They Look Neat – Ever come to a site and see just a big block of text? No photos, just a run-on paragraph that doesn’t seem to end? Do you read everything word for word? Yeah, well, neither do I. List posts make it easy for me to scan through the content on a site. So naturally, I’m more likely to stay there and skim through the content if everything is neatly organized into a readable, scannable format.

Today’s Action Step:

You guessed it… Today’s task is to write a list post! I’ve already shared an example of a few up above. Here are some more examples from blogs in the Real Estate Industry:

11 Expert Tips To Make Small Rooms Feel Larger

6 Pricing Mistakes and How To Avoid Them

Top 3 Most Expensive Miami Beach Miami Beach Homes Sales – February 2010

Bonus Reading: 10 Steps to the Perfect List Post

If you don’t finish your list post today, that’s ok. But you should finish it at some point this week. When you do, come back here and post a link to it for the rest of us to read and share! Oh, and feel free to toss me a Tweet… Just CLICK HERE TO TWEET IT.