Why is it that everywhere you turn there's a list for this or that? On Facebook, friends recently began posting 25 Random Things About Me - which bloggers have been doing for years. Now some people are lambasting the listiness while others are shortening it to a more manageable 3 Random Things (3 Places I Have Lived or 3 TV Shows I Watch).

Just recently I ran across or should I say stumbled across (Social Media Joke) a few posts and/or Twitter dialogues that were lashing out against list blogs. You know these blogs, they start with a topic and then list them off in order. For example, The 5 best, 10 worst, or I dunno 12 Most.

Last week the HR Twitter world was ablaze with the release of John Sumser's latest "Top 25 Online Influencers in Recruiting" list. It's the fifth edition of John's popular ranking, but the first time he's used our Social Ears to compile it.

A considerable portion of my consulting time has recently revolved around the optimization of corporate blogs (or the addition of blogs to revamped sites). As usual, I find a pattern emerging in the strategies that need attention and the pitfalls that must be avoided.

I've been experimenting for some time now on different types of posts, to see how they drive traffic to my site in different ways. From the use of Google Analytics and my experience, I've managed to compile a list of the 6 different types of posts I write, ordered by the amount of traffic they drive to my site and I have to say, I was a little surprised by some of the results.

This guest post is by Satrap of BlogStash.com. What is the best way to drive traffic to my site? What's the fastest way to generate traffic to my site? What's…? We all want to know the best way to drive the greatest amount of traffic to our sites.

This is a guest post! If you want to write for us, check out the Guest Post section. Do you want an innovative method to get people to link to your blog? All you have to do is write lists. There are several reasons why lists are a great method to get renewed traffic to your blog.

How did you do this year? Did your blog attract new readers? Were you able to grow your email list? Did you try guest posting? After looking through my notes and google analytic reports I uncovered a few techniques that worked exceptionally well this year.

One of the most interesting trends in comScore's 2011 social networking report is the new growth of social sites that cater to users' interests, rather than their real-life social graphs. In particular, according to comScore data, microblogging platforms Twitter and Tumblr have had break-out years, and they've been joined by new online pinboard site Pinterest.

One of the very first posts that I published on Site Sketch 101 was titled "14 Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic." Within days that article had received dozens of twits and quickly began to rise in page hits.

(Left Photo Credit to: jirvinphotography) There's been some debate in the blogosphere about whether or not list posts make for good blog posts. On one hand, you have the advocates, who say that list posts earn them more traffic, and on the other, you have bloggers saying that list posts are boring and lazy.

Thanks for dropping by. Originally from Carlow and living in Dublin; marketing manager in agriculture and food industry; undergrad was BA (Hons) PR & Communications; studying part-time for MSc in strategic management; social media addiction creeping in on my social life; U2, Mad Men and Entourage fanatic; automotive aficionado; idols are Bono, Eddie Jordan and Michael O'Leary; passion for new ventures, learning and most importantly...

Generally bloggers agree that writing posts in a form of lists is a good idea, as it can improve your traffic. How is it possible? Well, here is a list of reasons: -Lists often make it easier for a writer to express his thoughts.

Have you ever noticed how common lists are? Why does it seem that almost every blogger in the blogosphere churns out list after list after list? How many times do we need to read “12 Ways to Have a Great Day”? What if you didn’t read this list?

Every single time my web browser opens there is another list. The Top Ten Reasons You're Going to Lose Your Job. The Top Ten Reasons People Get Fat. The Top Ten Reasons My Dog is Better Than Your Dog. The only reason that we are provided a list for every day of the year must be because we want them.

Gearing up ecommerce sites and social media marketing strategies ready for the holidays is one of the biggest issues retail brands are worried about at the moment. One of the best ways to get users shopping on your site is by adding a wish list system.

This column is written by Kimberly Turner from Regator (a great tool that gathers and organizes the world's best blog posts). - Darren Each week, Regator brings you a list of the ten stories bloggers have been writing about most during the previous seven days (click any trend to see a list of posts about it).

Take the pledge with me, please. "I hate top 10 lists. I will never do a top 10 list. I will never re-tweet, share on Facebook or otherwise positively review a top 10 list ever again. I will cast the appropriate amount of scorn and derision upon them, because I realize Top 10 lists are a tool of the Devil."

Numbered list posts are popular with blog readers according to both internet discussions and my own experience on the Brainzooming blog. Analyzing recent posts with PostRank demonstrated nearly all the most popular blog posts on Brainzooming incorporate a numbered list and feature the number in the blog title.

Yesterday, I gave you my top 10 favorite Brainzooming blog posts for 2010. It prompted me to look at the most viewed articles for 2010 on Brainzooming.com. Here are those which received the most page views throughout the year: 1. 7 Extreme Creativity Lessons from "Cake Boss" 2.

It seems that bloggers are discovering that using a blog title with a number in it attracts attention. Here are some that showed up in an email alert from SocialMediaToday: I guess that readers want to know that there is a limit to what any given author is going to say.

And other blog subjects that drive me nuts. I've been conducting a little experiment on my blog for the last month or so. I've been hearing a lot of uproarious criticism about certain kinds of posts, specifically how a few cookie cutter post styles seem to be taking over the internet.

Lately I have been noticing a tendency on my part to skim rapidly with most blog posts. Every post looks like it has been churned out by the same machine. They all feel the same. I wake up to an inbox full of emails that I get as a result of subscribing to many, many blogs.

After a very successful HubSpot Twitter chat on Tuesday (join us for the next one on January 24th at 3:30 PM EST!) about business blogging and content creation, one discussion point stood out among the rest: everyone we spoke with acknowledged the importance of business blogging for inbound marketing success, but many people said that, despite their best efforts, it's really hard to find enough time to do so on a regular basis.

PROBLEM: You are a web programmer. You have users. Your users rate stuff on your site. You want to put the highest-rated stuff at the top and lowest-rated at the bottom. You need some sort of "score" to sort by.

Twitter and Tumblr made it easy to re-tweet and re-blog other's content - the first step in social curation of the web (red arrow above indicates re-blog feature on Tumblr) Pinterest boards are not as consumable on Facebook as stream-based sites such as Instagram, carving out a large new social media market for this behavior.

Updated: The new hot social thing on the web these days is a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company started by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp. (I incorrectly described this group as ex-Facebookers. My apologies for the error.) It is called Pinterest and it is about the concept of curation - a much abused phrase in Silicon Valley.

Brands will become publishers and not simply curators. Sophia Aladenoye thinks that content production and strategy will continue to grow tremendously in 2012. Brands will be expected to be content publishers, producers & planners – pushing them to become more flexible, imaginative and proactive in the creation of great content to sustain interaction with the millions of people who follow them. People, across various social networks, will expect brands to provide them with consistent & fun content that spans across platforms. Brands that embrace this challenge and focus on developing an online personality that is easily recognizable via first, second and third-party brand content will win (in the space of online attention & relationships) moving forward.

A content sharing strategy will be just as important as a content production strategy. It’s not enough to simply create good content in 2012. All brands are slowly becoming publishers. Brands will now have plan accordingly to actually create good content that can be shared. It’s the end of the “produce content, push it out and make it go viral” flowchart. A brand planning efficiently can have as much of an effect pushing through social channels as they did pushing through traditional avenues.

Almost on a daily basis, I see people trying to reinvent the linkbait wheel, constantly looking for new formats of content. Whilst I'm all for innovation and progress, there is something that can be said for utilising tried and tested methods of audience attraction and link development.

Top 10 lists are like new year's resolutions. They seem great at first, but they quickly make you feel bored, hopeless, and like you've wasted your time. And that's usually because they are filled with things you know you should do but can't commit to doing. They're too aspirational. Too shoot-for-the-moon-y.

Almost on a daily basis, I see people trying to reinvent the linkbait wheel, constantly looking for new formats of content. Whilst I'm all for innovation and progress, there is something that can be said for utilising tried and tested methods of audience attraction and link development.

I love lists. Lists are one of the best ways to get things done, to survey a project, to get organized, or go grocery shopping for your lady ("Honey, what aisle are the fermented bean sprouts in again?") Plain and simple: Lists rule.

I used to spend a lot of my time plowing through Google to find potential link targets for client websites, I still do this a lot but I've changed my approach a lot of the last 12-18 months to try and become a bit more efficient.

Dan Moulthrop - "A few weeks ago, I was catching up on some work and tracking a little Twitter activity, and I..." Dan Moulthrop - "Two of the most popular conversations on our The Civic Commons these days have to do with the..."

In the past series of articles, we focused on determining what keywords were already generating business for a web site and then optimizing your existing pages to improve organic results for those keywords. In this and some future articles, we’ll cover adding new content to a website as well as other web venues to improve [...]