What makes good blog content?

Last week I wrote one of the most popular blog posts I’ve ever written—my post about the future of DVD rentals. It was favoured when measured not only by the statistics, but also by the feedback I received.

What really made me realise people appreciated the post was the number of comments I received about it offline (you know you’ve hit the big leagues when people bring up your blog post in person!). A few examples include:

• The post has received between 122 and 142 pageviews in only a week, since it was posted (depending who you ask …).
• My cousin text messaged me to ask, “Did you write that thing on dvds [sic]?? Or did you copy it from somewhere else [sic]“.
• I was asked permission for the article to be cross-posted on Intentious.
• It generated some very interesting and insightful comments.
• Even my mum commented!

But why was this post, in particular, so popular?

The thing that shocked me was that the topic wasn’t particularly controversial. There was no link-baitey title or provocative message. In fact, the post was actually fairly simple.

Below are some reasons I think my post on the future of DVD rentals was so successful:

• The post was well thought out.
• The post was well researched.
• The post was topical.
• The post was interesting.
• The topic was accessible (especially for people from a non-marketing and non-technology based background).

It did take me a long time to write that post. In total, I spent approximately 4 hours writing it, which shows that there was some thought and research that went into it.

If I write more content which follows the tips above I might be able to gain more traction and build my audience. Unless … I’m not writing for the benefit of the audience, but rather for the benefit of myself.