10 types of blog posts to grow your search traffic
What types of blog posts should you include in your blog? If that’s the question you are asking yourself now, you have come to the right place to get your answer.
Table of Contents
Blog post type #1 – PRODUCT-FOCUSED
The product-focused type of blog post is a detailed description of your product: its technical features, performance and benefits, how it helps customers and why they should buy it.
This type of blog post is displayed by Google in search results for commercial intent queries where customers are researching products in your niche. It’s your responsibility to convince the reader that your product is the best for their needs.
TIP:
Include rich media like videos, graphics, images etc. And also make sure the visitor can buy the product by inserting a Buy Here button.
Blog post type #2 – HOW-TO & TUTORIALS
Although you might think YouTube is the king of How-To and Tutorial content, writing a how-to or tutorial blog post is a great opportunity to attract blog visitors. Don’t get discouraged by YouTube’s competition and add images, graphics, videos and other media content to your blog post to make it packed full of valuable information for your reader.
This type of blog post attracts visitors looking for information and is of low purchase intent. Getting them to read your How-To blog post is just the first step. Think of them as your guests: they’ve just rang the bell and you have invited them in. The next step is to offer a selection of beverages they can choose from or in marketing talk to ‘hook’ them.
TIP:
Once they are on the blog post page, you need to have something else prepared for them. It all depends on what you want them to do next: read another blog post, give you their email address, or sign up for a demo or a webinar.
Blog post type #3 – LISTS or LISTICLES
Who likes doing research? Not your customers!
But we, content writers, love to do research because this results in lists or listicles, a great type of blog post readers love.
List blog posts help customers advance in their buying journey by giving them options to choose from. This type of blog post usually includes Top or Best in the headline.
It’s an informational type of blog post but could be used to increase brand awareness if you find a way to include your product in the list.
TIP:
Before you begin working on your list blog post, research the topic on Google, write down all the numbers attached to lists on the topic and make sure your list has the biggest number. For example: if Google ranks a blog post with the title Top 5 cloud storage providers, your title should read Top 10 cloud storage providers.
Blog post type #4 – GUIDES
How-to blog posts are often guides with titles such as:
- How to write a blog post: a step-by-step guide.
- How to do contouring right: the ultimate guide.
- How to choose the best cloud storage provider: the complete guide.
The difference between how-to blog posts and guide blog posts?
How-to blog posts list products or services in random order while guide blog posts describe steps that need to be taken in a specific order. You can write a marketing campaign only after you have built your buyer persona. You can plan for international expansion only after an in-depth analysis of the market you wish to enter.
Blog post type #5 – EXPERT ROUND-UP
The expert round-up is a highly valuable type of blog post.
As the name says this type of blog post is a collection of insights on a specific topic provided by industry experts. It’s always useful to have a glimpse into the experiences of other professionals and benefit from their conclusions and, at the same time, reach their communities which you couldn’t otherwise reach.
The expert round-up blog post is a great boost for brand awareness.
TIP:
Insert audio snippets of the experts’ insights alongside their quotes.
Blog post type #6 – CLIENT SUCCESS STORY
Is your customer still hesitant about your product or service?
The client success story might be just the type of content they need to take the final step and purchase or sign up for your services.
A good client success story provides your product or service with social proof which is very important. Customers often disregard brand advertising featuring high-profile celebrities or influencers; they prefer to hear about your product from people like them.
TIP:
Create a series of client success stories enriched with video interviews and location filming.
Blog post type #7 – EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT
Employee profiles will boost your employer branding tremendously.
This type of blog post shows transparency and a genuine interest in your employees’ career progress. These blog posts will help your company attract the right talent, confer a unique character to it and make it easier for customers to connect with you. After all, companies are made of people.
TIP:
Create a series of blog posts; you can also turn this type of content into 5-minute documentaries where you can show your company story, culture and workplace.
Blog post type #8 – CASE STUDIES/REPORTS
Professionals in every industry are looking for case studies and reports to make informed decisions, draw inspiration from or use as the research base for projects.
If you have access to a significant amount of data, you can leverage it to write original reports. Take your customers’ top pain points and see what your data tells you and how you can provide them with solutions.
If you don’t have this kind of access, you can still write original content by reaching out to industry experts, curating available content and putting it all together with EAT ie Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness.
TIP:
Write the report as a PDF and use the blog post as a landing page to generate leads.
Blog post type #9 – INDUSTRY TRENDS
We all want to know what the future holds so we can be better prepared to overcome its challenges.
We want to know what is trending now or in the near future because we need to keep ourselves updated. What are the trends in web design? What is everyone doing now in SEO? Is there a new social platform getting ready to dethrone Facebook or TikTok?
Blog post type #10 – THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Thought leadership content or editorial-type post is great for building a community around the leader and increasing brand awareness; they are not so great for attracting visitors from Google since they are not optimized for search.
But if the leader’s community is big and their ideas interesting, the blog post will get views and recognition.
TIP:
Include a video where the leader shares their main ideas in front of the camera.
