May 22, 2007 Comments
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It's no secret that "top x" lists are popular with bloggers. They're a good way to draw attention and to pull in links from other blogs. If you're anything like me though, you often find yourself with 9 good items or 11 good items, but have trouble hitting that supposedly magic number ten. No worries! As it turns out, a "Top Seven" list could score you more links and requires you to do 30% less thinking.
Russ Jones of The Google Cache blog claims "7 is the new 10."
I was able to determine: do people really like top 10 stories? or has that number become so trite, so overused, that top 10 lists are ignored and overlooked. My guess, top 6 stories would be the most successful, my adversary (VP Malcolm Young) guessed top 7 lists.
In fact, after taking the time to run a search at Digg to find out how many "top x" lists made it on to the front page, here's some of what he found:
| Top ? | Stories Submitted |
Stories Popular |
Success Rate |
| Top 10 | 1690 | 653 | 39% |
| Top 9 | 10 | 2 | 20% |
| Top 8 | 25 | 1 | 4% |
| Top 7 | 90 | 53 | 59% |
You can view the numbers broken down for everything from Top 12 lists down to Top 3 lists on Russ's site.
Hat tip to Jordan at Marketing Pilgrim.
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