Posted in Website Design Tips	April 27, 2007

The top five media blogs in the country remained for March, but one community-centric website is knocking at the door.

By Adam Sutton, Managing Editor, Mequoda Group LLC

The March results of the Mequoda Blog 100 are in, and the top five media blogs in the country are the same as last month, but shuffled. They are, in descending order:

• TMZ
• USA Today
• glumbert.com
• PerezHilton.com
• The Superficial

All but one of the top five, glumbert.com, took a hit in unique visitor counts during March. Glumbert is the self-declared “center of the universe for the hottest, most outstanding, zaniest, and downright amazing videos you'll ever see,” which earned it over one million unique pages views in March—up from 716,000 in February.

The MetaFilter, pushing on the cusp of the top 5 at the number 6 spot, is a blog that publishers should visit and learn from. It has loads of user generated content and embodies Community Building, a strong Mequoda value.

The MetaFilter’s content is entirely user generated, edited and manipulated. Members can even adjust the look and feel of the site. Most posts are short, link to an interesting website and frequently generate over 100 comments. It is a self-titled “community weblog” and has no main writer to contribute the bulk of the content.

Websites where users generate more than 90 percent of the content are extremely valuable (think of YouTube). They give users a sense of belonging, which is great for branding and encouraging repeat visitors. Also, allowing users to comment generates loads of webpages attributed to the host website, which greatly increases SEO.

Every publisher should take lessons MetaFilter’s example and build a community into their website. User generated content

• Adds value to your website
• Gives users a sense of belonging
• Boosts your brand, and
• Drives up SEO.

To learn other ways to attract users to your website, and how to turn that traffic into revenue, attend the Generating Website Revenue Executive Webinar with Mequoda Managing Director and Chief Information Architect Don Nicholas.

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