Ever wondered why some bloggers make easy passive income, while others need to write TONS of articles every month to receive the same result but fall behind when they get lazy? It has actually nothing to do with writing quality article or the ability to express yourself. It is only about the type of the article, that you are writing. Here are the basic types:

News

This is the type of articles that have sometimes very heavy traffic, when properly advertised in social networks. In the same time, they are very short lived. Examples:

• 10 Cyber Monday deals 2011 (hot today in Google Trends)
• Google acquires Motorola (hot few months ago)
• Skype has been bought by Microsoft (too)
• etc.

What is mutual by all of them? They will be forgotten few weeks after they are hot. Even if they are very good written, soon the articles morph into a chronicle of the past year and no one reads them anymore.

See the stats of my worst news article (right–>). Total waste of time. Badly advertised and even worse – so much better covered by other NEWS sites, that it barely made any traffic at all, and few months later – nobody is interested in reading it.

When writing news-article, ask yourself, would you read this articles, even if they are top-results in search engine:

• 2007 census in USA.
• Michael Jackson accused of children abusing
• 2008 Veteran’s day in Washington DC.

No. They are old or controversial. They were accurate and interesting years ago. At present, they are just a chronicle.

Opinion

• You watched a movie and want to share it with us.
• You made review of your new Camera and want to express your opinion.
• You are angered by the world economy crisis and want to shout so everyone knows.
• You support something or
• You hate something.

It is your blog. It is your world. It is your opinion.

This kind of articles are often as short lived as the news-articles. It’s just your opinion on something that’s going on currently, or you being amazed of the quality of your new toy. But there is one main difference:

 

Your opinion is not always SHARED by everyone.

This article type is very successful if you manage to write something controversial and start a good argument in social networks. You suddenly see more people coming. Friend’s friends, that do not share your view are starting a dialog with you and soon you have the avalanche effect. Few of them tweet about you and even more crows come to pluck your eyes in a matter of 30 minutes. Then, after some time – everything settles back to normal and the article goes where it belongs. History. Your opinion matters for the ones that share It, but actually the ones that DO NOT – will come to your site to knock on your forehead. They may even invite some more crows to comment on your article. And this is not bad.

Just don’t over do it. There are some areas, that don’t create arguments and controversy but hatred and aggression instead. Be sure to avoid them:

• Religion
• Sexual orientation
• Racism
• Nationalism
• etc.

… are all dangerous. And even big G can get you banned from search results if you manage to create article with too sensitive content.

Evergreen

• Answered question, that has very high demand in search engines through all the year.
• How-to [something].
• Step-by-step walk through.
• Online resource.
• Recipe.
• Results from a research you did.

can all be a good evergreen. Why? Because they are immortal. You can never outlive something, that has been done before you were born, and will be done after you leave the world of Arda and head to the eternal Valinor. Useful stuff is always in demand:

• How to peel a tomato 😀
• How to setup VLAN in Linux?
• Game walkthrough.
• 10 ways to optimize your site for Search engines.

Have a look at the stats for my VLAN article. They are not breath-taking or steady, but they are persistent. And 100 such articles in your blog can make decent constant traffic flow.

My advice?

Stick with evergreens!

• Make research and share it with the public.
• Create a good list of resources you found and share it.
• Make a How-to for something you are really good at.
• Create a step-by-step guide for something you are experienced with.
• Play a game and share some secrets.
• Explain something.
• Answer some questions for something you were unable to find easy answers.

You can’t create news.

You don’t know your opinion will not trigger jihad against your blog.

You can’t fail with evergreen article.