Different Types Of Content You Can Create For Your Blog
Everybody loves a list. They’re easy to scan, have digestible information and they’re super popular for social media sharing.
You can create lists on almost any subject. It could be your favorite books or a list of your top bloggers to follow.
Written tutorials and how to’s
Tutorials and how-to guides are a great way to engage your audience and educate them in a single blog post. Plus, they’re easy to work on too since you’re already familiar with the topic.
The key thing to remember when writing how-to guides is to break things down into small actionable steps. This makes it easier for readers to follow your instructions. Including step-by-step screenshots further aids in this, especially for visual learners.
Marketing bloggers could write tutorials on how to use different social media platforms. Beauty bloggers can guide their readers through makeup applications. It all depends on your target audience and what they want to read.
Video tutorials
If writing full guides on a subject seem too daunting for you, you can always create a video tutorial instead. Video is hugely popular – sometimes more popular than the written word, so utilizing it in your blog makes a lot of sense.
Your options for video tutorials include:
- Filming yourself explaining things
- Filming a screencast of you performing the tutorial steps
- Filming a screencast with a voice-over explaining as you go through the steps.
A checklist is one of the simplest types of content you can publish. We’ve all written a checklist or to-do list before and they work because they’re short, easy to digest, and allow the ability to cross items off as you complete them.
Translating this into a blog post is the same thing. Simply post your checklist with some supporting information.
Gardening bloggers could post a checklist for planting in the spring or getting your garden ready for winter. On the other hand, interior bloggers can create a spring cleaning checklist.
Industry news
What do you do when you get up in the morning? You’ll likely grab a tea or coffee and browse the latest news. This is a habit you could include in your daily blogging activities too.
Why not scour various news sources for the latest in your blogging niche or industry. Put together some of the best pieces into a blog post and add your own critique and commentary alongside it.
Infographics
Infographics don’t have to be those long professionally made images you see all over Pinterest. An infographic can be an image of any size or shape and about any type of information.
Creating infographics for your blog is an effective way to provide valuable information while encouraging people to share something visually appealing. They could be charts, statistics, step-by-step instructions, and even fun facts.
The higher the quality of these infographics is, the better. Tools like Canva and Venngage make it especially easy to make your own imagery with their pre-built templates and free icons.
Current events
Similar to industry news, writing about current events is even easier. The key benefit of writing about what’s happening now is that people are already searching for more information about events as they happen, making your blog post a prime reading option.
Think of things that interest you and stories that stand out. Maybe they’re controversial, or especially interesting. Cover it in your own way to generate more interest from your readers. Even better, find a topic that already links to your niche.
Case studies
Case studies are an excellent way to generate social proof and they’re easy to write too. People love success stories, so writing a case study about someone who has used your product/service or advice to great success, can do wonders for your blog.
Get in touch with your audience and if you sell a product, contact your customer and start a conversation about how they’ve used your product and how it’s improved their life or business. Then include them in a case study published on your blog.
Video blogs (vlogs)
Video blogs or Vlogs, call them what you will, but with the rise in popularity of blogging on YouTube, video blogs are the new in-thing. Updating your blog in video format can have many benefits for your site.
- Videos are shorter
- You personally and visually connect with your audience
- They’re popular sharing fodder
- Many social networks prioritize video over written content
A few days ago I read an article on 15 reasons to quit blogging.
You might think it contained the benefits of staying away from the blogging industry, but instead, it had 15 reasons to quit blogging written in negatives that highlighted all the great things blogging can do for your life.
A funny blog post like this doesn’t always have to be related to your blog topic – it’s for fun – a way to make your readers chortle into their morning cuppa.
Your post could be pure sarcasm or irony. Consider adding amusing GIFs for greater effect. The idea is to mix things up with a funny spin on things, that could be an instant hit.
Resources
Sometimes we just want to find out the best way to do something quickly and effectively. A resource post is a perfect opportunity to do this for your readers.
You can compile resource posts on all kinds of things in the form of:
- Books
- Videos
- Toolsets
- Websites
- Social influencers
And many more. The key thing to remember here is to not just post a bunch of links. Take the time to explain why you should check out this book, visit that website, or use that tool. Have you used it in the past? What was your experience? Explain why you’re recommending it.
FAQs work well as blog posts because the content is likely something your readers have already been searching for answers to.
You can build this type of post as a long list of questions and answers which would make for good sharing material, but I’d recommend splitting it into a blog series. This spreads the content out over time, giving you more mileage for the content.
More importantly, this form of content is often evergreen, meaning the information will be relevant to people for a long time into the future.
Surveys and polls
Have you ever used the poll features on Facebook and Twitter? It’s simple, isn’t it? Polls and surveys are quick ways to get the opinions of your audience and the answers you receive can be put to good use in future blog posts.
Creating a poll or a survey on your blog is easy with tools like Typeform.com available, with many of them including features to embed your survey into your blog posts.
Presentations and slideshows
Just like infographics, presentations and slideshows are an effective way to share insights and information in a visual format. Slideshows are easy to create with software like PowerPoint for windows and productivity office for mac.
And if you’re looking for an online tool, AdobeSpark, and Canva are great places to put your presentations together for free.
For inspiration, check out SlideShare. But remember, you should keep your content high quality and informative to offer the best value to your readers.
Speaking of SlideShare – it’s a great platform to share your own presentations and you could even repurpose your existing content into a presentation.
Preview posts
Think about giving your audience a glimpse of the future. What plans do you have for your blog further down the line? What are your thoughts on the direction of your content?
A preview post like this can work wonders for helping your readers to feel closer and more connected to you. This is because you’re trusting them with this information. If you don’t deliver on your promises, they can question you and hold you accountable.
31. Open letters
I bet there’s been a time where you’ve been firmly against an organization or a person. Maybe their policies make you see red, or their attitude rubs you up the wrong way.
An open letter is a good way to air your frustrations and critiques.
Try not to use language that is too confrontational or insights negative action or violence, but put your concerns on the table for others to see. It might be worth getting a few people to read the post before you publish to make sure you’re not too controversial.
32. Galleries and photo albums
‘A picture is worth a thousand words might be an overused adage but it still rings true in many situations.
When you’re stuck on what to write, a blog post of imagery with some captions can get your message across just as effectively as writing your thoughts.
Take GIFs and memes for example. More often than not they need no explanation. Use this in your blog to give yourself some breathing room.
Recipes
Recipes don’t always have to be about cooking tasty food. When you’re stuck for inspiration, why not cook up a recipe for life to publish on your blog.
Here are a few other ideas:
- Recipes for a great blog post
- A recipe for the perfect image
- Color theory recipes
You can turn anything into a recipe. Start by listing the ingredients. For a great blog post the ingredients might be:
- An awesome headline
- Snappy subheadings
- Content idea
- Images
- Links
And then give your readers the method. Tell them how to put it all together for a great result.
Rants
Sometimes you just need to blow off some steam. So go ahead and rant away. It’s your blog – you can do what you want with it. Rant, in ALL CAPS, if you really want to, and get the frustration out of your system.
Just remember that what you publish on the internet, stays on the internet for everyone to see. There’s a good chance you could start a troll war with your rant. So make sure someone else reads it before you hit the publish button.
A glossary post
Do you use a lot of complicated words and terms throughout your blog? They might be essential for the type of content you’re creating but will everyone know what they mean?
Think about how alienating this can be for a new reader that doesn’t understand them.
A glossary post is a way to combat this. Collect the terms you feel your audience will struggle with – include them in the choosing process and ask them in a poll or questionnaire. Then publish them as a glossary to demystify things.
This type of post can serve as a cornerstone article you can refer to regularly.
You could also turn a glossary into cornerstone content for your blog. This is typically a higher value piece of content that has a higher potential for earning backlinks, shares, and traffic.
Blog aspirations
What does the future look like? Are you planning to expand your blog or break into a new market?
Share these aspirations with your audience – tell them where you’d like to be in a few years with your blog.
Perhaps there’s a subscriber goal or an earnings threshold you’d like to reach. Including your readers fosters a greater sense of trust and community. They’re in on your plans and aspirations.
Recycle old content
If you’ve been blogging for some time now, chances are you have a large archive of content at your disposal. Instead of letting them sit there doing very little, think about how you can recycle them into new content to publish now.
You could turn a list post into an infographic, a podcast into a written post, and a blog series into a newsletter series. For more ideas on how to repurpose old content, take a look at this article.
Sources of inspiration
What is it that gives you inspiration on those days when you’re feeling productive? What serves as your muse? Where do you usually get your ideas from?
Maybe there’s a walk you take regularly or a blog you read often. Your source could be hilarious things your kids say or musings from your grandparents. Whatever they are, put them together in a post and let your readers in on the secrets to your inspiration.
You can even go further by asking your readers to comment with their own inspiration sources. Who knows, perhaps one of them could be your next way to get inspired.
