How To Grow Your Blog By Content Types
To grow your blog you put in your very best on every blog post you publish.
Line by line, word by word to ensure you publish nothing short of the best.
You even followed the rules by attaching shareable images, breaking them into digestible and readable paragraphs, and also carried out the best outreach marketing campaign.
So, what then could be the cause?
Well, the reason is not far-fetched...
...It's simply because your readers do not like the type of content you're publishing.
Fortunately, the solution to this problem is equally simple - just write and post the content your audiences are craving to grow your blog. Isn't that easy?
Content Marketing To Grow Your Blog
When it comes to content marketing, the best approach is the one that will not only save you time but will also guarantee results.
It's, therefore, time to identify the types of content that will generate your desired results. The type of content that gave your competition an edge over you. The type of content that transforms an ordinary person into a huge influencer in his niche.
In this post, we're going to explore these winning types of content that big marketing influencers are leveraging right now . These have been helping them to get huge followings and grow their businesses.
1. Publish Engaging Long Form Content To Grow Your Blog
Common wisdom believes that no one has the time to read long pages of content on the internet anymore, right?
Well, I beg to disagree with that.
If you're currently struggling to rank some keywords or to attract an audience, or backlinks to your site even though you know you're offering some out-of-the-world information as I mentioned above, then maybe you should really consider writing long-form content.
To make it clearer, long-form content will present you as an expert in your field, boost the likeliness of sharing and engagement, increase your SERPs rank, and also boost your audience.
Because of this content, you will be seen as an 'authority' on the topic.
But What Exactly is Long-Form Content?
Let me make it simple: If all you do is get past the 500-word mark while writing just to ensure you're constantly updating your blog, then you're not publishing long-form content.
My personal rule of thumb is that any content that's less than 1,200 words is not short-form content. I'd advise you, however, to always aim for 1,500 words and above since 1,200 words (in my opinion) is the minimum.
But why not dive into it? Set a goal of 2,000 words plus for your long-form content. I can't really remember the last time I published a post that's less than 1000 words. I am always going for 1,500 to 7,000 words now, and it has been working for me tremendously.
Why Long Form Content Helps To Grow Your Blog
According to the CJR blog, back in the days, it was generally believed that long-form digital content is a bad idea until recently. Today, publishing short content isn't going to do you any good both in the areas of shares, links, comments, etc. Except you're Seth Godin whose posts are always less than 500-words but remember you cannot be him.
Don't take my words for it, perhaps the statistics below will further convince you on the efficacy of long-form content:
SerpIQ carried out a study in 2012 involving over 20,000 keywords. From the results, the average content length of each of the top 10 results was over 2,000-words. Also, the average number of words for the content in the first position was 2,416-words. For the tenth spot, the average number of words was about 2,032.
That evidence is fairly clear. If you truly want your blog posts to rank well in SERPs, consider writing long-form content.
Similarly, the belief that long-form content helps in search engine optimization (SEO) was made clear in a blog post on the Google Webmasters Central Blog by Pandu Nayak, creator of the Panda algorithm update, and the technical staff member at Google. Below is an excerpt from the post:
Apart from the SEO benefits of this type of content, it has also been proven that long-form content boosts conversion rate.
How Conversion Rates Help Grow Your Blog
When the guys at "Highrise Marketing" decided to improve signups on their website. They delegated the conversion improvement task to a couple of professionals who carried out some split testing. Finally, they discovered that the homepage article that's very long saw about 37% boosts in conversion rate compared to the one with a fewer number of words.
However, before you rush back to your writing pad with your newfound knowledge - thinking that if you slap up 2,000 words of content about how to get rid of your hair loss in five weeks, you're going to be in the first spot on Google's SERPs. Remember that you're never guaranteed to rank well just by writing long-form content.
Algorithms Take in Many Factors to Boost Your Blog Growth
The fact is that the search engine algorithm takes note of many factors. I could, of course, mention all the different factors, but that's not what this post is about.
Still, everything being equal, writing high-quality long-form content should be your target. This is what will increase the likelihood of your content ranking for relevant terms. And isn't that what it's really all about?
Why Well Formated Content Matters
Also, the more well formatted and beautiful your content is, the more it will boost its user-experience. User experience is one of Google's ranking factors.
Good enough, you can create longer-form content in just about any conceivable niche on the internet. You just have to carry out a thorough research on the topic. For example, I recently came across a blog that brews my mind.
The name of the blog is Home Products HQ, when I visited the site, I was amazed to find out that majority of their content is 5000 words and above (like the one I linked to). Also, notice how beautiful the post is formatted. The guys behind it are really doing an excellent job.
Finally, ranking your content for a certain number of keywords is a probability game. However, you'll increase your odds with longer-form content. That's my promise to you.
2. Infographics To Grow Your BlogIt's been proven severally that humans are, by a vast majority, visual learners.
Talking about the power of images, a certain study confirmed that after three days, a person would retain only about 10-20% of spoken or written information but almost 65% of visual information.
Another similar study also showed that an illustrated text was 9% more effective than ordinary text when testing an immediate comprehension and about 83% more effective when the same test was delayed.
No wonder today, readers not only love looking at infographics but are very likely to remember them and the information they passed for a long time.
Now, this makes infographics a unique type of content to use on your blog regularly.
But why are infographics so effective?
- It's easily digestible
- It always looks beautiful and pleasant in the eyes
- It's often a lot of fun to read
Now, this type of content is especially perfect when you have impressive numbers, statistics, or data-heavy research that can make for dry reading.
One of the interesting things about infographics is that they get shared, and shared frequently. Up to 3X more often than other content as shown in this study.
Finally, when creating infographics for your blog, remember to:
- Focus more on quality and visual appeal
- Have fresh and exciting content
- Be generous
Want to be seen as a guru in your industry? Research can help you with that.
The founder of ConversionXL (Peep Laja) is one of the best Conversion Rate Optimizers (CRO) on the internet. Ask me why...
Instead of claiming that "simple websites are better," in one of his blog posts, he went ahead to back up his claim with substantial evidence.
Here's what he said:
"In a study by Google in 2012, researchers discovered that not only will users judge websites as beautiful or not within 1/50th - 1/20th of a second, but also that "visually complicated" websites are continuously rated as less attractive than their simpler counterparts."The image below shows a similar example:
Shares Increase with Data Driven Research
That's an image from a fantastic, research-backed content Buzzsumo published on the OkDork blog. The post went viral immediately it was published. Not only did it get a massive number of shares across various social media platforms, but it also gathered over 1000 backlinks. That's kind of a big deal, right? Of cause it is.
I know what's going on in your mind right now. You think that a research like this would take a long time to conduct.
Listen, I'm not saying that yours should be as big as the example above. Instead, it can be a result of a very simple test.
For example, Alex from Groove recently published a guest post on the Buffer blog. In the post, he shared the result of a simple test he carried out about the power of storytelling in your blog. Interestingly, that simple test got over 10k shares from social media.
So how can you write data-driven, research-backed types of blog posts?
- Find a useful, big idea on something that is less talked about, or has never covered.
- Decide how you'll get the data you need in your content to make it super actionable and factual
- Show why your findings are vital to your audience
- Add relevant graphs, screenshots, charts, and images to prove your claims
- Add a strong call-to-action to the post
- Publish and share the hell out of it
To learn how to write this type of content, this guide by Neil Patel will go a long way.
4. Lists Post Help To Grow Your BlogBloggers and marketers are beginning to discover what women's magazines have known for decades: Lists posts work like magic - top 10 posts work even better.
Some years ago, marketing scholar of Seattle University "Mathew S. Isaac", and Robert M. Schindler of Rutgers University carried out a search on Google for the term "top [number]" using all numbers 1 through 100. The result showed that those that end in zero dominated the SERPs followed closely by those that end in five.
They later argued on the topic in the "Journal of Consumer Research," that people mainly demonstrated a so-called top 10 effect. What this means that we have a propensity to lump things into round number groups. We are viewing every other thing outside them as inferior.
List Posts - The Difference To Grow Your Blog
According to them, the difference between items ranking No. 10 and No. 11 feels enormous. It is significant, even if it's quite little or unknown.
Furthermore, in an interview with Fast Co.Design, they stated that:
"Our own experiences sort of led to this impression that if it's not in the top 10, then it's in the next category," Schindler tells Co.Design. "The overall idea is that numbers generally are considered to be equidistant, but subjectively they're not."
According to Digital Journal, 30 percent of all blog content are lists, what this means, therefore, is that you should start creating list posts. More list posts, and even more list posts if you're not doing so yet.
5. Expert Round-ups Continue to Grow Your BlogWhen I began blogging in 2011, I read the same advice on the internet over and over again.
What's the advice about Round Up Posts?
..."Interview a big name in your industry. It will give you a lot of social shares, visitors, subscribers, and also position you as an expert in your niche."
But, unfortunately, no influencer wanted to interview with me. Why?
Because back then, I was nobody to them. They won't get any value out of it.
However, there's also something else that gives you similar exposure like interviews.
It's Called Expert Round-up Posts
And the good part? So many influencers want to key in because they equally desire to see their name beside other experts (rubbing shoulders). And so, conducting expert round-up posts is simpler and less time consuming than an interview.
In fact, expert round-ups if done well, can give you lots of exposure as compared to an interview. Why is it so? Because in this post, a significant number of influencers are involved, and, a large number of audiences are equally involved.
Publishing expert round-up posts will give you mouth-watering results like this:
The resources below will guide you more on how to create this type of content for a better result:
Conclusion
Now you have it all. I've given all the recipes you'll need to create the type of content that will instantly help to grow your blog.
It is now left for you to put everything you've learned to practice and take your blog to the next level.
I'd love to know in the comments below what you are doing to grow your blog now.
