Top ten list should consigned to a special circle of hell that is List-101, a little hell where these lists should be locked up forever.

Second if you’re not frothing over something, a pic you love or some information that you want to share or recall later, then don’t blog. Don’t speak when you have nothing to say. Don’t write if you’re devoid of ideas or the desire to share. OK I’ll get off my soapbox now.

Performancing, who I used to use here on CR but stopped as it wasn’t adding anything of value to what I was doing, has a list of 10 Killer Post Ideas, these are deconstructed as follows:

1. How to

Let’s start with the obvious one shall we? “How to” is perhaps the easiest starting point because most niches will have new people entering the space that need to be brought up to speed.

A good idea, education your fellow man, it’s all good, unless you are trying to force your ideas or you are a patronising ass-hat. Then it’s bad.

2. Lists

If I am not careful I will start becoming a bit of a joke around performancing. How many top ten lists have I written? Thing is, lists work. They are easy to skim and digest.

I believe top 10 lists have become an Internet joke in and of themselves. As a blogger you will be sat one day staring at a blank post and thinking to yourself ‘What can I post about write now?’ It happens to us all sometimes. If your brain answers ‘Write a top ten list!’ then walk away from the computer for a while.

3. Campaign

Campaigns are a funny one. They either work very well or go down in flames and it is difficult to know beforehand what your audience will rally round.

Only be involved in campaigns if you really care about the campaign. If you care enough you’ll already be involved. If you’re getting involved in a campaign to just fill your blog or look hip then it’s step away time again.

4. Interview

If you are really stuck and you have access to niche celebrities, get them on IM or the phone and interview them.

Access to niche celebrities? Um, right, OK. Next.

5. Review

Reviews are good if you pick a product or service people are interested in, properly review it rather than writing a sales letter, choose criteria that really work.

Like number one this is a pretty constructive thing to do so it’s a good idea.

6. Case study

If you can write from real world experience then case studies can be very powerful.

We’re sailing close to the how-to category here. This is much harder to write than a how-to and far easier to get wrong.

7. Research results

Research is a good way of getting publicity and headlines. It always works best when it is your research and using the internet research is easy.

This works and can get you on a whale blog – such as boingboing – or a link site. I find doing straight research really dull, it has to have a quick end goal for me. You can do this if you are research inclined and are bright enough to be able to interpret that research correctly. Otherwise you are opening yourself up to trouble.

8. What’s new, trends

If you are really immersed in your niche then it should be possible to spot trends and report on them.

This is a good one if you can do it, you better be a good maven though. Trend spotting is useful, aside from the hits you can get to help shape what’s taking place.

9. Attack!

Going on the offensive is risky but definitely drives traffic.

If you attack someone in a blog to drive traffic you are a fool and I don’t want to know you. End of story. If you attack someone because you think you voice needs to be heard, your point made, then go for it. Be careful. Make sure you are right, or at least really believe you are right and can cope with the potential backlash. But go for it.

10. Ask the audience

As you will see in just a couple of paragraphs, I like to finish by encouraging feedback but some great articles are only that.

I’ve only seen this work on a select few blogs, the odds are you can ask away and very little will come back. JWZ asks straight questions quite often and always gets feedback. The odds of you managing the same until you have a large audience are not high; unless you are in a real niche area.

Link to the full text. Also of note is the post on linkbaiting.

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