Many of you would have seen a "top posts" block in sidebar in many of blogs which you have seen.This top post block lists the link of some of the posts which are either most viewed or are most appreciated by the readers. In this post I will discuss about the benefits of having a top post block on a blog and how to make a top post block in your sidebar.


Benefits of listing your top posts in the sidebar-

Listing your top posts has got importance both for your SEO campaign and for readers who reach your blog.

1. The readers of your blog has the convenience of getting to your most rated or top posts from any of your pages on the blog. As a blogger you must take care of the convenience of your readers. And by making a list of top posts you actuallyfacilitate browsing between your blog posts.
   


2. Most of the surfers of the internet are lazy or are in haste. So, they will never make an effort to find good posts on you blog themselves unless you tell them what is worth reading on your blog.The best way of telling about your best posts is to list them in your sidebar as top posts.


3. Making a list of top posts has a great utility from SEO point of view. Once you place links of your top posts in the sidebar, your top posts get a sitewide link from your blog. This helps your best posts to climb up in the search engine rankings.

I think now you get the point that why it is necessary to list your top posts in your sidebar.But the question here is , How should you do that? Well in the following paragraphs I am going to answer the questions like, What method you should adopt to choose your top posts? What factors you should take into account to choose your top posts? How to decide that which posts should come first and which later in the lists of top posts?


How to choose your top posts?

Although there are many factors which you can take into account while choosing your top posts but original decision rests on you. What you think is more important in this regard. But some of the factors which you must take into account while choosing top posts are-

1. Number of views.
2. Average time spent on the post..
3. No. of comments on the post.
4. Your personal choice.

Number of views and avg. time spent on the post can be found through google analytics. If you don't have an analytics account I would recommend you to get one. Its completely free.Pageviews and avg. time spent on a post can be valuable parameter in selecting your top post. A post with high pageviews and more time spent can be your top post.


No. of comments on a post is another factor which you should cosider while selecting your top post.A post with more number of comments mean it is being read and appreciated and thus can be one of your top posts.


Most of the bloggers only consider stats such as views and avg. time etc. in deciding their top posts and easily forget their own choices. But I will recommend to include a post which you like in your top posts even if its stats are not encouraging.


You can use any of the above mentioned factors either solely or in conjunction to choose or select you top posts. I use all these factors to select my top posts and will recommend this method.



Should I use a plugin to make a list of top posts if I am a wordpress user-


There is a plugin for wordpress blogs which can make a list of top posts for you. Well this sounds good as you don't have to raise even your fingers to list your posts and the task is done with few clicks with the help of small piece of software.

The main drawback is that this plugin only considers pageviews in deciding your top posts which I think is not good.It doesn't cosiders avg. time spent on the page/ post or comments which I think are valuable parameters. Secondly, the plugin makes use of javascripts to lists your posts which means you will not get the SEO benefits as search engines are blind to javascripts.

My advice would be to refrain yourself from using this plugin and make the list manually with the use of html. This will give you a dual benefit.



So, now I think you will be eager to place a top posts block in your sidebar. Do consider adding top posts on your blog's sidebar if you haven't done so yet.I have just added a top posts block on this blog which you can see on right side of this page.

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