The Internet of today is over saturated with information, which makes it a very competitive industry. Content marketers are now coming up with various highly effective content strategies to get a little expose in this crowded place.
Therefore as a blogger, we shouldn’t just rely on one type of content; rather experiment with different types of blog posts to see which impacts the most on our SEO strategies.
In this article, I have listed the most popular types of blog posts with their characteristics. So that, you can select the type that would resonate the most with your audience.
How-To Guide / Tutorial
The how-to guides or tutorial are the most popular type of blog posts on the internet. One of the perfect examples of websites that harnesses the power of such type of content is Wiki-How. Because these types of blog posts help readers solving a specific problem. Therefore, generating the most clicks and traffic to your site.
However, this type of content with step-by-step detailed instructions requires to have solid expertise on a particular topic, which many bloggers simply could not afford.
Along with the required expertise in a certain field, how-to writing also demands a rich set of images, charts, illustrations, or videos to explain the topic. Although if you have a solid understanding of a topic, writing how-to tutorials can surely attract more traffic to your blog.
To come up with ideas for how-to blog posts, just think of the biggest problems your audience is dealing with. The important thing to remember when writing a how-to blog post is to break down things into simple actionable steps your readers can comfortably follow.
Long Lists / Listicle
This is one of my personal favorite types of blog posts, but a lot of bloggers think it is very tiresome to produce a great listicle blog post. Although, they don’t deny its effectiveness.
One of the reasons it works so great because everyone loves to find the best information in the shortest amount of time and a great listicle blog post helps them to do that. Even right now, you’re reading this listicle article yourself.
Writing a listicle article is very effective for bloggers whose writing skills are not very good. Also, listicle blog posts are easier to write because of their writing structure. The key thing to remember when writing a list blog post is how detailed your list is. The more detail you put in, the better. One of the popular sites that use this type of article is Thefactsite.
Resourceful Long-form Content
Google progressively promoting this type of content with its recent updates on search engine algorithm. Because resourceful content goes deep into explaining a subject which indicates expertise and authority on that particular topic.
Various surveys are done by top SEO specialists also show the link between a long-form detailed blog article with a higher ranking in google search results. Those surveys repeatedly suggest that 3000 to 10,000 words article gets the most share because a well-researched blog post usually attracts a lot of organic backlinks.
Popular digital marketer Nil Patel says that posts with 4000+ words had played a big role in generating huge traffic to his blog.
He states “1,500+ word posts receive 68% more tweets and 22% more Facebook likes than the blog posts with fewer than 1,500 words.” These are the analytics I found on his blog that clearly proves the fact.
Product & Service Reviews
Be it a YouTube video, review testimonials, or an article on the internet, you always watch or read the reviews before pressing the buy button. Because as a customer we rarely have the time and money to fully test products before buying them.
To meet such a demand for review assets many blogs and websites straight out made business on it. All they do is reviewing various products and services for their audience. These review posts can be divided into two separate kinds; a solo review and a compression review between multiple products and services.
This type of blog posts can be found literally everywhere and is the most popular amongst affiliate marketers. Affiliate marketers often term this type of article as the money pages. Because they get a sweet commission when readers buy something with their shared links.
But this greediness also encourages many to write biased reviews that lack credibility and aren’t very convincing. That why new bloggers think affiliate marketing is hard because it is. Without building trust in the audience it’ll always be hard.
Case Studies
A case study is a detailed study or analysis of a specific subject. The subject could be anything from a person, group, product, service, place, event, etc. literally anything you can think of can be a subject for a great case study.
Case studies are often created to gain concrete and in-depth knowledge about a specific real-world subject, which makes this type of research-based article so valuable. It works well for authoritative sites. The important things to keep in mind while creating a case study are to write in a language that doesn’t look like a pre-planned marketing campaign.
Rather you can structure the article around a story, which increases the effectiveness of its self-marketing. A case study around a success story could be an ideal example of this type of blog post, because storytelling is scientifically proven to have a higher impact on the reader’s brain.
Controversial / Opinion Posts
Opinion based blog post or article has its own place on the list, mostly due to its extreme tone of writing. If you don’t like a product or service, just rant about it. There are a lot of people on the internet who enjoy this type of blog post.
Although, controversial posts can prove to be a great place for having a meaningful intersection between the writer and readers, especially when both share the same opinion. However due to the very nature of such posts, often bloggers face some angry comments from the readers.
When writing this type of controversial post, you should keep in mind that it is OK to have a few posts now & then, but if you make it a daily thing then the topic can become odious. Therefore be careful about what you write. Be civil, and don’t cross the line. It’s your post and opinion, so be humble about it.
Infographic
Infographics are a huge deal when it comes to generating a lot of backlinks to your site. If you don’t know what does infographic mean? then let me quote from Wikipedia.
Infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly.
WikipediaYou might have heard “A picture is worth a thousand words“, Infographics are a perfect example of that. But don’t be discouraged by the fact that most infographics you see on the internet are professionally designed. It means they are professional graphic designers who make those designs, and if you don’t have the skill, don’t worry.
It does not need to be beautifully designed as long as it carries the actual information. Also, an infographic can be of any shape & size and don’t necessarily require to be super lengthy. Therefore, It is the most effective way of presenting information that other content marketers love to give a link back.
You could create simple looking infographics with a lot of free online tools. I recommend Canva. It’s a web-based designing tool for non graphic designers. Who don’t want to deal with the complexity of Photoshop to create quick & simple graphics for their site.
Inspiring Stories
Everyone loves to get motivated when they are depressed. A good inspiring success story can rejuvenate their dimmed energy. Also, this type of success story can easily get viral if done effectively. Because people want to experience the success themselves. So, sharing some good inspiration stories don’t harm your site.
Final Thoughts
It is very important to stand out from the crowd of the never-ending sea of information. Understand your audience and explore multiple types of blog posts for your site. See, which performs better in terms of reader engagement and organic traffic.
Not every blogger produces content equally. Identifying your strength in one particular type of content help you boost the writing quality. And at the end of the day, this is what matters the most both for your audience and Google.
Of course, the list I have discussed is not everything. There are a lot of types on which you can write your blog post on, but these are the primary ones I consider to be the most effective.
Always remember, it can take years to scale up your site if you continue to publish the same types of content repeatedly. So, next time you have a juicy piece of valuable content to share with the audience, try to structure your blog posts in one of the mentioned types.
