Traffic is good.
Targeted traffic is even better.
To get traffic you need to experiment and generate interest.
Let us look some blog post formats that work well at generating interest and driving traffic – whatever be the industry.
1. Lists
Lists work.
Not all but the good ones.
They work every time, have for years.
There are naysayers, who say that lists are ugly … not in good taste. Looks like they never created one and enjoyed the fruits.
Here is an example of a good list post – a monster list of posts to help you rock your blog in 2013.
2. Case Studies
These are very good for showcasing your work and also good for promoting your clients. A total win-win. A good case studies is detailed and what Neil Patel calls “giving the farm”.
Example of a good case study – check this one. You may not have resources to create one like Neil. But look at the content, flow and detailing and work on emulating that.
3. How-to Posts
How-to posts work in every industry. They are a good traffic driver. And if you give unique info, these posts establish you as an authority.
To write a good how to post, get inside the mind of your audience and think about for what questions they may be seeking answers for. Think about the challenges that you face/d. Give those answers. Add pictures, screenshots – whatever makes it easy to understand.
4. Themed Series
A themed series is a series of posts on a topic.
These are good to bring back visitors to your website.
When visitors come back – search engines see it as a sign of good content – because if your content does not offer value, why will visitors come back.
So series based on a theme or a topic is good.
But do not create a series, by breaking a big posts in parts. Do not do just for the sake of doing it. Do it only where the topic demands a lot of comprehensive info. Like a series of posts on email marketing. You do not need to do a series of post on creating an email marketing checklist. One post is enough on this topic.
A simple rule can be to post anything under 3000 words in a single post, and to break it up if you go above it. It is also OK, if you post a 5000 words post in 3 parts.
5. (Very) Personal Stories
This is another format. Not easy to do.
But if you are able to do and once mastered – it can bring a wave of comments and solid engagement.
Example – a master at work telling a personal story and getting more than 200 comments.
Now pick your favorite and get started.
You have a post format different than these, share in comments 🙂