5 Reasons Why List Posts Are For Dummies

Posted by Bill as Blogging Tips

List Posts For Dummies

If you’ve been surfing the blogosphere for more than say a half an hour, then you have no doubt noticed that you find a TON of “List” posts. They are as prevalent as oxygen or 12 year old make money bloggers from Malaysia.

The lure of the “list” post is even touted by some heavyweight bloggers like Brian and Darren. You would almost think list posts were some kind of affiliate marketing program. Everyone writes them, pushes them, reads them…but why? What can we learn from this.

I’ve been studying blogs and bloggers for a few months so I decided to offer my perspective.

Why Bloggers Love List Posts

1. Bloggers are Lazy - List posts are easy to read and easier to write. You can just find a list similar to yours, change the order, reword a few things and pretend you came up with it. That’d be ok right? It must be, as thousands of aspiring little plagiarists are doing it every day. Aspire to greatness, if you must write a list post, at least write your own damn list and put some thought into it.

2. Readers are Lazy - List posts are easy to read. You can scan them quickly, agree or disagree with the material, and move on to the next blog in your reader. They are a fantastic way to waste time, which is right up most people’s alley. If you do read list posts, then take the time to think about what the material is telling you. Instead of reposting it to your own blog, how can you learn from it. What’s the message?

3. Easy Way Out - People don’t really want to work to be successful, so when they see a post titled “10 Ways to Become Successful Overnight” they tend to flock to it like a moth to a flame. List posts are like the “lottery” of the internet. Readers will seek them out hoping that this list will be different than the last 4500 lists they read this week and this one will give them the answer. If they just find the right list, everything else will be easy after that.

4. Interesting Research - List posts give you an excuse to read Cosmo. No self respecting, red blooded, heterosexual male would admit to reading Cosmo so if your wife catches you then you can simply write it off to “research.” It must be ok….Brian said so. Cosmo has made a living drawing people in with alluring headlines only to disappoint them with absolutely no content, so it could work for you too. Right?

5. Hypnotic Powers - Lists have an amazing ability to hypnotize readers and make the believe anything. It would seem that judging by the number of times “lists” get linked, they must have the ability to make people believe them. It’s kind of like if you see it on TV then it must be true. If you read it in a list then it must be the real deal. Once you read one then MUST LINK TO IT. MUST LINK TO IT. MUST LINK TO IT. MUST LINK TO IT. MUST LINK TO IT.

The Best List Post Ever

I may be a bit harsh with my assessment of most list posts or I may be dead on, that is for you to decide. I do think list posts have a place on a blog if you use them appropriately.

Here are my suggestions for “Writing List Posts that Will Win Friends and Influence People.”

1. Add Value - If you write the same list post on driving traffic to your blog that everyone else has, what are you accomplishing? Fluff? An easy post? Have your own voice and your own ideas….it’s the only way anyone will bother coming back. I know readers can be pesky and leave comments and want new content and all that stuff but you are actually trying to build traffic right?

2. That’s it. There is no secret list of how to write good lists. If you have something that can add value to your readers experience then it’s a good list. It doesn’t have to be numbered, it doesn’t have to be ordered, it doesn’t need a Cosmo headline, it needs to be GOOD.

Conclusion

As a blogger it is very easy to be a follower. The easiest thing in the world to do is to imitate those who are already successful but with the exception of John Cow, how many copycat bloggers do you see that are successful?

Hopefully you have learned that the easy way out is never the successful way out and followers don’t often succeed. Lists definitely have a place in the world but if you expect to be taken seriously by your readers then make it a list post worth reading.

Write a Purple List Post.

I only came up with 1 idea for my list so I am sure I must have missed something. Any ideas?

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18 Responses

bennie

March 14th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
1

This is so true man but I most admit that I like lists because I get all the information needed in less than one minute. The thing that I hate is when Im reading a long post with a good title but the content is all garbage, with lists you read the topics and if you dont like it you leave as simple as that.

Nice Post and Keep the good Work!

bennie’s last blog post..Microsoft apoyara el Open Source
Bill

March 14th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
2

Bennie - Do you really get all the information you need in just a minute? If you think about it this way, if you can get all the information out of it in just one minute, how valuable could it really be??

Do you ever actually get anything out of a list?

I think maybe your first couple of weeks of blogging when you are trying to figure things out they might be attractive but after that….its all the same list…..over and over and over again.

I’d like to see if someone can link us to a list that offers anything of any value that hasn’t been on 12k other list posts.
Simonne

March 15th, 2008 at 6:39 am
3

It looks like you’ve just published another list

The fact is that lists have the great attribute of dividing the information in smaller chunks, so people can follow much easier. Reading on the computer screen is different than reading a paper book: the eyes wonder all around the page, and they need some anchors where to stop and rest. The bullet points in lists and the headlines are such anchors, and this is why they are easily noticed even by those who only scan a page and not actually read it thoroughly.

Simonne’s last blog post..ProjectWonderful: Advertise and make some bucks
Bill

March 15th, 2008 at 7:43 am
4

@Simone - so are you saying that they make scanning a page much easier so again m y question would be this, how much value can their be in a list post if someone writes it to make it easier to skim over?

Can you really learn or teach anything from a bullet point list that wasn’t already common sense or you already knew.
Shane

March 15th, 2008 at 8:30 am
5

It’s not so much “written to be skimmed” as screeds of text on a monitor are plain hard to read. Dot points and lists break up the flow for the eyes making it easier to digest the information. The alternative is to print it out and read it on paper, but if I wanted to do that I’d be reading a magazine and not a blog.

I agree that a lot of lists are poorly written or designed purely for traffic over content, but that doesn’t automatically make the structure invalid, just the majority of the content.
Bill

March 15th, 2008 at 8:33 am
6

@Shane - Sure I understand that but posts can be formatted so they are easier to read as well. I am with you on the content thing, it’s the content that is putting the lists in a poor light.

I would still love someone to link me to a list that has information in it that isn’t common sense or something that hasn’t been hashed out 10.2 billion times.
Erica DeWolf

March 15th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
7

I love the irony to this post! I am by no means going to stop writing blog post that uses lists for many of the same reasons you said we use them- they’re easy to write and readers find them easy to read. However, I will be a little more careful as to the content of my lists. Thanks Bill!

Erica DeWolf’s last blog post..Guest Post Available: Marketing to Minors
Bill

March 15th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
8

@Erica - I’d make an Alanis Morrissette reference right now but that might not be ironic enough.

I too like lists, I just don’t want to read the same list that I have read on 12k different sites around the internet. You can tell the ones where some thought went into it and the ones where they just copied another list and reworded it.

I LOVE list posts on blogs where the very writer of the list post doesn’t even follow the advice in the list.

Bill’s last blog post..5 Reasons Why List Posts Are For Dummies
Crystal

March 15th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
9

I love the irony from this post. Well done. When I’m reading list, I don’t usually read past the first sentence (often bolded) in each section. So I hope I missed nothing important up there XP

Crystal’s last blog post..Blogging Money & Traffic - My Experience Part 2
Bill

March 15th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
10

@Crystal - Nah…it’s a list post….you didn’t miss a thing.
Futon-Matt

March 16th, 2008 at 8:42 am
11

Very nice, a list bashing lists.

Generally I stay away from lists in my blog.
webDiggin

March 17th, 2008 at 11:35 am
12

You hooked me on some discussion in BlogCatalog. Well, the title of the post hooked me - it’s opinionated and that made me want to read it.

Just starting, and just discovered BlogCatalog and all it’s discussion and I’m starting to think that serial bloggers are a different breed from your average surfer. They go to blogs, they subscribe to feeds, and they recognize when they’ve seen a list 12K times…

But your average web surfer doing a natural search on Google? Isn’t it going to be news for them? I mean, everyone has to start somewhere.

webDiggin’s last blog post..Cash Flow Report: Feb 2008
shanker bakshi

March 19th, 2008 at 11:21 am
13

I do use list post on my blog , why i write list post, there is very simple reason behind it, i found then very easy in writing….straight…bullseyes…..no story strings attached.
Ditto Rahmat

March 21st, 2008 at 9:02 am
14

I don’t think you should equally judge that all list type blog post are crap. There are some list type post on blogs which I find highly informative and I don’t think are rehashed or scrapped from other content. Such blog that I personally read and often visit includes DoshDosh’s blog @ http://www.doshdosh.com/ and Copyblogger’s blog @ http://www.copyblogger.com/.

While the quality of my post blog post is way subpar comparing to those blogs (yes, I’m new to blogging, 1 month to be exact, and yes I do use list type blog post since I tend to write things to the point), I still don’t agree to your point that list post are for dummies.

Ditto Rahmat’s last blog post..Easter Giveaway 2008 is Here!
Bill

March 21st, 2008 at 3:10 pm
15

@Ditto - Sorry but they are definitely for dummies.

If the information that has to be passed is so shallow and weak that it can be presented in a list then it’s not worth reading.

I still challenge anyone to show me a list that isn’t common sense OR hasn’t been passed around from blog to blog like a football.

So far…No takers.

Dosh Dosh and Copyblogger are the worst kind of “listers” because they write some crappy list post and then every schmohead that reads their site rehashes the same list. So we have to read that post on 10k different blogs for the next 6 months.

It’s a fact.
svakanda

March 21st, 2008 at 3:38 pm
16

I like to chop my lists up on a mirror before I snort them….much better assimilation that way!

svakanda’s last blog post..as the amoeba would
JustChris

March 30th, 2008 at 1:51 am
17

I don’t find list posts to be a bad thing as long as you don’t do them in excess. A list is a way to organize things. Hence it’s an easy way to pad out some content if you’re having difficulty organizing your thoughts and have been running dry on posts recently.
7 Tips To Overcome Writers Block - eXtra For Every Publisher

April 25th, 2008 at 8:01 am
18

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