I’m always looking for more ideas on how to communicate better with my audience. I’ve listed in this article some popular post types you can use in your blogging efforts.
List Posts
This blog post type is the king of the hill. Everywhere you look you see list posts, and for good reason. Readers love them. Take a look at your bookmarks in your browser. 10 bucks says you have some list posts in there.
Readers are looking for quick pieces of information that will help solve their problems. Sometimes they just need triggers to point them in the right direction. List posts do all of this amazingly well. They are easily digestible and can be created quickly.
List posts are also scannable. Readers can pull out the meat of the information quickly and catalogue it for future use. Lists posts take complex material and make it understandable.
List posts don’t have to be shallow. They can go into great detail and become cornerstones of your blog. If you’re not using list posts in your blog you need to start.
Link Posts
This post type offers a great way to build credibility among your readers. Let’s face it, we don’t have the answers for every problem. Others have done the research and developed solutions that work. We should promote those blogs and products on our sites and in return we’ll benefit.
Along with building credibility, you give your readers information they may not otherwise have and you build relationships with the Bloggers you link to.
Personal Posts
Personal posts are used to develop empathy between you and your readers. As they get to know you, they become loyal customers and contributors to your blog. Try to limit your personal posts to about 10% of your blog posts, so you don’t hurt your blog from overexposure.
Instructional Posts
Teach your readers something! Instructional posts are right behind list posts in effectiveness.
Review Posts
Review posts provide insights on products, services, people or sites in your niche. If your doing a product review and haven’t used the product, give the user the technical details and specifications, but ask them for their opinions. Don’t destroy your credibility by making stuff up.
Opinion Posts
Share your personal thoughts on a topic related to your niche. Similar to personal posts, you want to limit how often you create this post type or you may risk alienating some of your readers.
Call to Action Post
If your getting traffic and some sticky readership, but no comments, maybe it’s time to get your readers off the sidelines and into the game, by creating a call to action post.
A call to action post asks your readers to perform a specific task. This could range from writing a comment, buying a product, subscribing to your RSS feed, or completing a task. These posts are great for getting your readers involved and getting comments for your efforts.
Reader Targeted Post
Your readers are important to the success of your blog, so occasionally you should shower them with attention. This could be a post about their comments, writing about their blogs, or allowing them to promote their projects on your site.
Let me know your favorite post type.
