10 Reasons Why List Posts Are Useless

1. Quantity, not quality

The number one goal of a list blog post is to deliver as many bits of something as possible.  Doesn’t matter useful/interesting/noteworthy those bits are, as long as they’re there.

2. List posts are self-serving

Blog authors publish list posts hoping it will drive massive traffic and go viral on social bookmarking sites like Digg.  That’s the underlying purpose behind them: To serve their own traffic numbers, and not deliver real, useful information to their readers.

3. Lack of research

Anyone can google for “photography tips”.  Do we really need 1,000 blogs doing the googling and listing of search results for us?

4. Over-generalized

I’ve seen a list-post titled “300 Photoshop tutorials”.  How is this helpful?  There are probably 1,000 different features in Photoshop, which serve 1,000 different uses.  If I’m in search of a good article on how to color correct a photo, chances are I won’t find it in this list post.

5. List posts are so 2008

Blgging exploded in 2007-2008.  That was the golden-era of the list post.  They’re still around today, but we tend to tune them out more in 2009.  At least I do.

6. No way to learn a new skill

If you want to learn a new skill,  you should consult a single article or tutorial covering that topic.  One well-written article with illustrations or a well-produced video screencast is a much better/faster way to find the info you’re looking for.

7. Lazy writing for lazy readers

Blogging is about serving your readers with something worth-while.  The best blogs are the ones that take the time to research, outline, edit, refine, re-read, and perfect before hitting publish. Compiling list posts doesn’t require much thought, skill, or analysis.  Reading list posts involves scanning the page for bits of what you’re looking for, usually to no avail.

8. All about the title

List posts are all about the title, and not about the content.  Don’t get me wrong, coming up with an interesting, click-worthy title for your blog post is a very important part of the craft.  But it only pays off if there is a solid article to back it up.

9. Poor link-bait

The irony of the list post is that authors publish them to draw traffic.  But we all know that the best way to get traffic to your blog article is when others link to it.  Nobody links to list posts.  Well, maybe if they’re posting an article titled “101 list-posts to waste your afternoon”.

10. Fluff to reach a nice round number

Most of the time, list posts don’t truly deliver on the number they promise in the title.  But they still want to reach “10″ or “100″ so they fill up items with fluff just to get there.

Thanks, but no thanks.