Anchor Posts

A few weeks back I received an email from Chris Garrett, of whose newsletter I am a proud subscriber. The email mentioned about flagship content of a blog and he provided a link for us to download his e-book on this all important topic, one that would propel your blog to greater popularity. The content of the e-book really hit the nail on the head. I was stunned as I looked seriously at my blog. To be exact, I was too embarrassed with this blog, that for over two weeks I didn’t know what to write. The question kept coming to my mind, nagging me to the hilt:”What’s my flagship content?” Meanwhile, two new shopping complexes just open for business in my city. With a population of just over 600,000 at last count, these two shopping complexes sure need an anchor tenant in their complexes to add as crowd-puller to keep them in business. In the ocean of websites and blogs, more so for me to have my unique flagship content to bring repeated visitors to my blog. I know I have an enormous task ahead of me, one that has worn me down quite a number of days.

Brian Clark called it Cornerstone Content and Chris Garrett called it Flagship Content. In his article, he also use the analogy of an Anchor Tenant in a mall with the Flagship Content of a blog. Some may choose to use the synonymous term of Keystone Content or Pillar Articles to mean the same thing, but I would like to called mine Anchor Posts. Whatever term you may call it, your blog must be known to the blogosphere with remarkable anchor posts that well define the uniqueness of your blog immediately. This post is then an endeavour in this learning curve to find my remarkable anchor posts. One wordpress plugin, in-series, would be used for linking all the related Anchor Posts in a series for easy reading.

There are number of blogs that can be term professional in discussion and description of this concept of writing Anchor Posts. My choice of references will be:

• Chris Garrett’s Flagship Content e-book;
• Brian Clark’s definition of Cornerstone Content;
• Tom Johnson’s Twenty Usability Tips For Your Blog - One of the best written posts of tips for writing Anchor Posts;
• Jonathan Bailey’s Protecting Your Cornerstone Content - Though not exactly on writing of Anchor Posts, it is good reading material for securing your hard work after you have written your Anchor Posts.
• Maki’s Four Reasons to Write Extraordinary Articles - An excellent well-written post underlining why it is important to write Anchor Posts or as he called it Pillar Posts as these anchor posts will immediately separate the wheat from the chaff, defining your blogs as some form of authority in your field of expertise.
• Problogger’s 10 Steps To Writing A Successful Series On Your Blog - A must read for anyone who endeavours to start writing Anchor Posts.

The email from Chris Garrett was an awakening. Maybe it is time for me to start defining my blog. From today onward, I will continue this journey of writing my Anchor Posts…