Categories: OLD Media Moves

What makes for a top post on Forbes.com

Lewis Dvorkin, the chief product officer at Forbes, writes about the stories on its website that get the most reads.

Here are some of his conclusions:

1) Reporting Matters: Staff reporter Parmy Olson’s exclusive rags-to-riches story of WhatsApp founder Jan Koum hit the Top 15 four times — a full week after it was first published. It generated 10% of its total page views in the 7-day period and drove significant next-page traffic. In a digital-to-magazine triumph, her Inside Facebook’s $19 Billion Megadeal cover for the Billionaire’s issue was also a Top 15 post.

2) The Pile On: Former New York Times Executive Editor Howell Raines was famous for “flooding the zone” — sending as many reporters as possible to cover a major story. On the Web, writers can flock to niche stories — and audiences respond. Right now, Tesla and Bitcoin posts are golden.

3) Text Over Galleries: In a smartphone world, news audiences gravitate to headlines and stories (photos of red carpet dresses excluded). A post about Michael Jordan earning $90 million last year generated the only non-Billionaires gallery to hit the list all week.

4) Search Still Rules:The Top 100 Inspirational Quotes was published in May 2013. It was on the Top 15 list six times. The upside: 8 million page views so far. The downside: little retention value.

5) Go-To Companies: Apple, Samsung, Walmart. They are audience favorites all the time. Facebook and Twitter? Nope. There’s something about things you can hold and retail.

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

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