One of the reasons why public writing is so addicting is because there’s a chance somebody important out there might read what you’re writing and highlight it to somebody else important. Your traffic starts to surge and your site might even crash due to server overload. If this happens, congratulations! You have found your Whale Post!
The Whale Post is elusive. You think you’re writing interesting stuff, but most of the time nobody really cares, as reflected by the lack of comments. You can have a site with thousands of subscribers with only 10 people motivated enough to leave some thoughts. How demoralizing is that? It’s only demoralizing if you think you’ve written something good.
Whale Post definition: A post which contains over 100 comments or 5X your average number of comments and accounts for at least 25% of your monthly traffic. This is a new term that I’d like to introduce to the online writing community.
Here’s a case study of how the post, “How Much Do The Top Income Earners Make By Percentage” became a Whale Post on Financial Samurai. If you search the term “top income earners“, you’ll see this post come up at the top of all major search engines. Because of this, the post has received over 60,000 page views a month for the past couple of months. Meanwhile, there are more than 700 hundred comments, hundreds of which could be stand alone 800-word articles themselves!
THE BASICS OF CREATING THE WHALE POST
* Provide an opinion. The difference between blogs and major media publications is that we have the freedom to interject as much personality and opinion in our writing as much as possible. Blog posts are the exact opposite of articles written by The Economist magazine! If you are getting no comments and have at least 100 subscribers, you are not writing anything new or interesting.
* Provide an answer to a burning question. The primary reason why people search online is to provide an answer to their question. The more difficult or widespread the question, the more someone will search, bringing in more traffic all things being equal. “How Much Do The Top Income Earners Make By Percentage” started appearing on every single political forum thread around and was debated over and over again.
* Be a good moderator. Your Whale Post will likely get a lot of folks coming out of nowhere trying to discredit what you write. On my Whale Post, there are a number of commenters who want to tax the rich 100% of their income for example! I love this extreme type of thinking, and you want to encourage the crazies to expound on their opinion in a professional manner. Most of the time they just want attention. If you address one of their extreme notions, there might by 25 comments that ensue. If you’re never responding to anybody, well then that’s a crying shame.
* Title your post the way you would search online. This is very basic, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t do this. I recommend combining an SEO friendly title + a spicier sub-title afterward eg How To Write The Whale Post And Harpoon Moby Dick In The Eye.
* Write in a clear and coherent manner. The basic tip of having a intro/thesis, body to support your thesis, and a conclusion still holds true. Tell a story as much as possible to prove your point. Due to rising ADD, write in small paragraphs, and create blocks in your writing to help readers skim. Use bullet points or lists like you see here as well. You know when you’ve written something good. Conversely, you know when your post sucks. Just be honest with yourself.
* Guest post on a similar topic with pertinent anchor text. As a blogger, you have the ability to create a movement. The Yakezie Network helped create a movement to focus on mozRank as a good alternative to Google Pagerank given PR hadn’t updated for over a year at that time. As a guest poster, you usually get 1-3 link backs to your posts, so you might as well use the pertinent anchor text that links back to your growing Whale Post. In my case, I’m posting here on mozRank 6.2 Yakezie.com using the anchor text: “how much money do people make“.
* Understand your audience’s power. What’s better? Writing on a site with 10,000 subscribers who have very little presence on the web? Or, writing on a site with 500 subscribers, all of whom have the best blogs in their niche with thousands of readers of their own? I choose the latter every single time as it’s not the quantity of readers that counts, it’s the importance of the reader.
* Anticipate the future. During the spring of 2011, I surmised social unrest will return given the sluggish labor market, stories of CEOs still making multi-millions despite company underperformance, stock markets swooning, Europe imploding, and President Obama’s continuing to practice class warfare instead of bringing people together. I figured a lot of people would start wondering what other people make. And then the 99% movement took off, and then the 53% movement to counter the 99% movement. Of course I don’t know for sure what’s going to happen in the future. It was just a hunch.
* Let your post breathe. If you publish a well-written post, and then publish another one the very next day, you aren’t giving readers a chance to participate in the conversation or share. Sure, the post is just one below the newly highlighted one, but you all know that commenting and sharing activity drops when the post drops out of the featured spot. For those posts you really are proud of, give it at least two days in the featured section if not more, depending on the amount of your traffic. When the post starts gaining traction down the road, you can re-sticky the post to the first page.
MAKE YOUR POSTS THE BEST ON THE WEB
You can go ahead and spend your time on Google’s Keyword Toolbar figuring out which keywords are highly searched and come up with a game plan for you to rank better. You can install plug-ins and SEO software to help optimize your posts. But, if you are like me, and all you want to do is write, and hate all this technical stuff, then do little of that and just follow the steps above.
Spending a minute thinking up a title and using your free All-In-One SEO plug-in is more than enough time to prepare your post. The Whale Post is an elusive being and it won’t last forever. I’ve written over 450 posts, but only three have ever become Whale Posts (around 15 have come close, but no go). Despite it all, that’s what makes writing so much fun. So long as you put opinion into your writing, and not simply rehash the morning news, you’ll gain a lot of traction. You’ll never know when you’ll catch that Whale Post, but when you do, you’ll love it!
START A PROFITABLE BLOG TODAY
It’s been six years since I started Financial Samurai and I’m actually earning a good multiple six figure income stream online now. The top 1% of all posts on Financial Samurai generates 31% of all traffic, which makes much of my online earnings highly passive.
I never thought I’d be able to quit my job in 2012 just three years after starting Financial Samurai. But by starting one financial crisis day in 2009, Financial Samurai actually makes more than my entire passive income total that took 15 years to build. If you enjoy writing, creating, connecting with people online, and enjoying more freedom in your life, see how you can set up a WordPress blog in 15 minutes with Bluehost. Hosting costs less than $5 a month.
The actions you take today help create your future. You never know where the journey will take you in 2016 and beyond!
Regards,
Sam
It’s funny because whenever I think I’m writing a post that’s going to ‘change the Internet’, I get nothing. Often when I write something that I feel is not my best work, it’ll be the post that gets pageviews, editors choice selections on carnivals, and comments. You never really know what’s going to hit. I like the ideas here as ways to increase your chances.
I think we’ve got to eradicate the thought that any of our writing will ever change the Internet! It’s when we have that type of mentality where we get disappointed and frustrated.
I wrote this post because I wouldn’t to analyze how this post came to be so popular. A little bit of introspection and then elaboration if you will.
Good luck with finding the Whale!
I agree with Moneybeagle. The two articles that have been picked up by other big sites, I didn’t suspect it to the be the case at all. I still haven’t had a whale post, but eventually. :)
I have a post that constantly brings in search traffic but nothing that’s gone viral…yet. However, I do feel like I’m getting a better feel for what my readers are starting to like and the type of information they would prefer.
Keep hunting! Once you start intricately knowing what your readers like, it won’t be long. Congrats for reaching Black Belt!
Hi,
How do you promote stories or posts like that? If you could point me to the help or info section I would greatly appreciate it.
Have a great night, and point me to where your work is as well. I would like to see.
What do you call a post that only has one comment but brings in the most page views from Google? Stealth submarine post? Lucky?
I’m imagining a Yakezie Dictionary which has names for all sorts of post types. The Whale Post. The Thinker. The Dud. The Hardcore. The Stealth Submarine. The Polarizer.
I’m sure I’m missing a bunch!
Donno, but for now, let’s focus on the Whale Post! You’re free to write a post on the subject!
I’m not a blogger, but it is pretty evident when a writer puts in the time and effort into his/her posts, and when he/she does not. From spacing, to length, to grammatical errors, it’s easy for readers to tell, b/c we are used to reading perfect content from the mass media.
Good tips! It will help improve the overall quality of the writing in the PF community for sure, even if you guys still don’t find the whale!
That is awesome Sam! I saw that post and all the comments, but the search traffic is awesome! Congrats on your whale post! Hopefully I will have one soon!
60,000 page views/per month to one article is awesome! Love the concept of “the whale post”. Like Money Beagle, it’s the posts that I never intended to be stellar that were the ones that went viral – go figure!
Great tips Sam. I will have to work on a whale post. I’ll add that to my 2012 new year resolutions list. :)
Sounds like a good resolution. Your site is doing great regardless!
I love this Sam. I want a whale post someday! That is awesome you’ve had such great traffic and comments on those whale posts. Putting time in to write good quality content that helps people is what it’s all about. I always take time to write something I’m proud to have my name on and I enjoy responding to comments and answering questions.
I think that’s the key at the end of the day. Did you put in your best effort to write a post you are proud of? If the answer is YES, then I think sooner or later you will find your Whale Post.
Even if you don’t create the Whale Post, you’ve still got great content that elevates the quality of the community overall!
That’s some great info there sam – I had no idea that post of yours had done so well! I’ve been trying to get more into SEO and helping my best posts out, but this will encourage me even more.
Thanks Jeff. It’s the benefit of not highlighting my stats on my site. Helps focus the readers attention on the writing. Also helps fend off fly by nighters who keep pinging to do guest posting. Fun to just blend in and up the ante if necessary.
Good luck on your Whale Post!
Terrific post Sam! Way to introduce a new concept and it squarely hits the mark. I read somewhere to make a video go viral, you are not supposed to try. Does that apply to writing? Your bullet points should be used on all of our posts to add quality. Like others said, sometimes the ones that go viral, aren’t your best stuff. Thanks for giving us another bar to shoot for. I am still searching for my whale post. Congrats on landing 3!
Thanks for such a great post Sam. Very helpful. I haven’t been lucky enough to write a whale post yet but hopefully one day it happens.
Wouldn’t your 20K stumble home gym post qualify?
I’ve heard of the term whale post before. It was so fascinating to me that every time I read about it before, it would encourage me and motivate me to try to conjure up something miraculous. I actually feel very motivated right now! But I’m still working on the resutls…hehe..
You have? I haven’t and I Googled the term to make sure. Let me know where. Thx!
youre right Sam. Maybe it wasn’t quite the same term as “whale post” but for some reason as soon as I saw the title of the post, I knew exactly what you were referring to. So I just assumed naturally that I had heard of it before. I probably ran into something similar when first starting out my blog. Didn’t mean to take away from your credit.
No worries. I’m happy to reference the term if it has been used before. I searched and couldn’t find it, so I took it up for my own. It’s OK to discredit though! Just send me the link. Thx
Sometimes, I wonder if I write too many posts… every second day seems to bury some posts, so I appreciate the idea to let the post “breathe.” Appreciate the coaching Sam!
No prob. Yeah, experiment a little. Let it breathe for 3 or 4 days… especially towards the end of the week when things are slower i.e. Fri, Sat, Sunday. Use the other times to comment around the sphere!
That term reminds me of the people that are huge high limit gamblers at casinos, called “whales”.
I’m going by the approach that I’m writing about things in which I’m interested, which others might be as well. By doing so with heart and spirit, to the best of our ability, we just might create a piece that’s fortunate enough to become a whale post. If it doesn’t reach that status, at least you’ve put a lot into the content – which you can feel good about.
That’s a lot of pageviews on that post you referenced. Congrats on that sucess!
Exactly. This is where I got the term from.. the whales in Vegas who dominate the volume and either hit it big or not.
If we can put our best effort into all our posts, collectively, the whole genre rises, and that’s good for all of us. Of course, don’t spend bagillions of hours on a post. But it’s worth putting some time into each one so that we’re proud.
That’s a good strategy to write what you’re interested in. I employ the exact same thing. I don’t want to write what I don’t want to read!
This is a great post Sam! I personally like the idea of injecting opinion into your blog, and that is definitely one of the key reasons why FS has done so well. I’ve had a couple posts that are close to “whale” level. I have no doubt that it will come soon if I just keep writing what I’m passionate about.
Opinion is such a must. Seriously, no opinion, not so interesting! Good luck in your quest to hunt for the Whale!
Content is everything! My best posts are the ones many people find interesting. My best posts are also the ones I enjoy the writing the most. When I put a lot into it, it usually works the best. I am working myself up to a whale, I think I am up to a dolphin! :)
Hey, dolphins sound good Krant! I’ve highlighted one of your posts on FS today. You are like the most active commenter around the entire PF sphere! I think you deserve an award! :)
Good analogy, as I am currently in a school of minnows! In school, meaning I am still in the learning phase about blogging. My posts are minnows, meaning they don’t get many page views as of yet. Everybody has to start somewhere though. Every whale started out as a tiny minnow, right?
That’s right Matt. Every Whale was but a spec of nothing at one point. Just gotta keep at it! And even if you don’t find the Whale Post, you’ll have a tremendous amount of good quality content on your way there!
I like the new term, “whale post”. I have had a couple of these, and most of the time, they are a big hit because they involve my life! People like what’s real, especially if it relates to them.
[…] How To Write The Whale Post on Yakezie.com. For anybody who likes to write for public consumption, I share some thoughts on […]
Hi Sam, There is so much good stuff in this post I’m struck with two thoughts; 1. These are some wonderful instructions for “how to” grow your site. and 2. Oh no, more stuff I have to put on my “to do” list. In sum, I particularly like your take on seo, now that makes it simple!
I loooove keeping it simple. Hopefuly this post demonstrates that it’s really not necessary to spend money on SEO and a lot of time thinking about the topic. Our best SEO agent is our logical selves. It doesn’t hurt that are part of a Network and get to write on the Yakezie.com platform either!
I am terrible at predicting what will be a ‘successful’ post and what won’t. I think some of it is competition in terms of other sites rank higher in search engines. I have found some of my highest traffic posts are ones that talk about current events. I got huge traffic on a quick post I put together about Border’s going out of business. Few comments, but great Adsense. Same was true when I wrote about a tax loophole that Google uses called the Dutch Sandwich Tax.
I haven’t written a whale post yet in terms of your comment definition unfortunately. You have provided some really great tips though and I need to do some thinking!
I’m terrible too, and therefore I don’t predict or expect. I just try to maintain a minimum standard of writing and a formula for the majority of my posts.
Interesting… I never aim to write a whale post. Blogging, and I should say writing, is a creative outlet for me. I don’t write to become famous, or create a huge traffic wave, or hit the hot spot (whatever that means lol.) I express myself through writing. I enjoy a good conversation and love my blogging community. This is what matters to me. Trying to write a whale post seems like a chore. :)
We’re on the same lines here. I write due to the enjoyment and really dislike working on the SEO and other stuff. Hence, if people can forget about all the other stuff, think logically and follow some of the steps above, I think we will all enjoy the experience even more since the quality of the writing will be elevated.
I wanted to figure out how the post became a whale post, but didn’t have the intention or dreams of it becoming one.
Great concept! I really like your approach to SEO also, I work in SEO and your suggestions of phrasing a title the way you would phrase a Google search and not over-thinking the SEO aspect are right on. Letting the post “breathe” is a great idea – I’ll have to keep that in mind if I ever get to the point where I have a “whale post” candidate. :)
Sounds good. Tell us more about your life in SEO! What if one’s content isn’t that great, does no amount of SEO matter as a result? Is SEO your full-time job?
Love to learn more. thx
I’m still working on my whale post, but I agree with your strategies mentioned above. I also try to title my articles as if I would search for that topic in a search engine. It has definitely helped!
I am always on the prowl to learn how to improve my content! As a blogger, it is really easy to get caught up in SEO tactics. But the truth is, content is the most important thing when it comes to SEO. It helps to bring more traffic as you stated, but brings in the readership as well!
Even though I haven’t written my whale post (crossing my fingers SOON) the purpose of my writing is to help me improve my financial intelligence. Just as I read other personal finance blogs for the same intent.
The most popular post on my site is called “A Whale Shark of an Opportunity”. Go figure.
I like your idea of paying more attention to post titles. I can go back and look at some of my earlier posts, and think “what was I thinking with this lame title”
Neat title, and perhaps not a coincidence! Maybe the word “Whale” is a popular search term! lol. Good luck with finding the Whale Post!
I have yet to write the whale post. I have written a few that have gotten several thousand visits, but 60,000 is amazing! I think the key, as you say, is to focus on current trends and what people are searching for. I also agree with Derek that most of my posts that get more comments than normal are the personal ones. Readers seem to like to help solve problems.
Yeah, the Whale Post doesn’t last forever. Maybe 3-6 months and really starts to fade. But, it might take 3-4 months for people to find and make it a whale post!
I find that the whale posts are usually ones that are really, really controversial. I wrote a post (I think it was 2-3 months ago) titled something along the lines of “Problems in America”, and that was right after the debt crisis was resolved. Whale posts are usually a sign of the times.
I’ve been tossing a few topics for a whale post, but want to find a topic that I really feel passionate about. Your instructions are awesome as they make the process a lot easier than I expected.
That’s a good direction, and have that topic answer a burning question. Let us know when you get there!
I write what I like, and what is working for me. Those are the posts that do garner the most attention. I have not yet written the whale post, but that will come in time.
It’s a good strategy for blog longevity for sure. With a little more focus, I think the odds of a Whale Post go up. We could literally write thousands of articles and never get there. Sometimes, often times, it’s just luck!
I had no idea I was going to write a whale post when I did. I think I have one, and some others that I weren’t expecting would be somewhat popular but they were. Interestingly enough my straightforward PF posts tend to only do well for a few days and then drop into the archives forever.
Here is my whale post: http://www.investitwisely.com/3-unconventional-investment-moves-to-make-in-2011/
I always find it hard to predict which posts will be “whale” posts. There are clearly some that I’m more personally vested in, but that doesn’t always equate to the post resonating to “the masses.” Thanks for sharing your SEO tips too.
I love your comments about the crazies commenting. I usually just ignore those. Maybe I’ll rethink that!
I missed that in the post earlier, but you’re right. I ignore those too. I don’t like to waste the energy.
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This is so helpful! I acknowledge the crazies. I highlight their valid points and politely dispute their crazy ones. I haven’t had anyone too far over the edge yet, though. I absolutely love hearing differing opinions and try to encourage them on my site.
Never heard of a whale post before, but I like it. And it makes sense. I got the biggest whale post (to be fair, it didn’t get as many hits as you’re talking about, but it was the biggest spike I”d ever seen) on a post about home foreclosure and police kicking in doors to help with the process. Now that I read this post I understand that it probably got so many hits because home foreclosures were huge in the media at the time! (well, still are, but even moreso then).
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Excellent posting. I will keep it mind!
Cheers!
BSR
Those are nice summary and many big points. Thank you also for the insight of your traffic statistics. I think it is eye-opening to know that only some articles really carry the most of the traffic. I could see that in many other blogs and websites too. I wish it was possible to know earlier which post will be that one. Its also like a numbers game I guess!
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