12 Types of Blogs You Can Write Today
- 55% of digital marketing professionals say blog content is their best strategy in lead generation.
- A survey conducted by WordPress found more than 409 million users view over 21.1 billion webpages every month.
- 77% of online users habitually read blogs.
On average, content marketing gets three times more leads than paid search advertising (according to the Content Marketing Institute). This means your content game needs to be strong if you want to boost online visibility for your business, and one of the best ways to beef up your digital content is through blog writing.
What is Blogging?
Blog writing, or blogging, is writing articles on specific topics on a regular basis. When applied to marketing, this is a great way to reach your target market and create, as well as sustain, an online following. Not to mention it’s a way to engage and inform with research-based, data-driven, and creative copy, while still promoting your business.
Why is Blogging Important for Businesses?
Blogging comes with a lot of perks that can do well for businesses of any size, industry, and location. It has the power to generate creativity as well as widen your digital presence, along with many other key benefits:
Inexpensive to create and maintain: Most WordPress-based sites have a blog feature, and they’re not difficult to build for non-WordPress sites.
Helps increase user traffic: The more dynamic and relevant your content is, the more people will visit and stay on your website looking for valuable information.
Helps you rank for search engine optimization (SEO): Blogging expands your portfolio of web content, which gives search engine crawlers more information to sift through and rank when it notices your increase in visitor traffic from users. This in turn can make a great impact on your SEO rankings.
Builds expertise, authority, and trustworthiness: otherwise known as Google’s EAT algorithm for SEO that evaluates the relevancy and quality of web content.
Creates more shareable content: shareable content means more user visibility, especially on social media with shares from several users (quantity engagements), or from key industry influencers (quality engagements). This is how viral posts are made!
Creates opportunities for partnerships and sponsorships: blogs can effectively promote affiliate products and help you earn lucrative partnerships with other businesses, within your industry or otherwise.
Helps generate leads: include compelling CTAs (call-to-action messages) within your blog posts to help generate leads for your business and make quality conversions.
12 Types of Blogs You Can Be Writing
There are many types of blogs out there, some of which are probably better suited to your particular business than others. But let this be a guide for you in developing your content strategy through such a diverse medium for creativity as blog writing!
Short-Form Blogs
These blogs vary in terms of length, but generally anything less than 600 words is considered short-form. There’s been a bit of debate in the digital marketing community on what is more effective: short or long-form blogging. Recently the trend has shifted more towards long-form blogs to improve SEO and user traffic.
That being said, short-form blogs and shorter, easily consumable video content are still in demand. They’re also easy to churn out in spades. However, short blogs shouldn’t be your only vehicle for solid web content, and definitely shouldn’t be the only types of blogs you’re writing.
Long-Form Blogs
Anywhere from 600 – 3,000+ words, long-form blogs are boss. They’re great for SEO, and really, these types of blogs are more informative for your readers. They increase the likelihood that a user won’t venture elsewhere for the answers to their questions, or for a more entertaining read.
Reviews
Straight reviews of single products can be a highly effective way to gain user traffic while providing something that’s helpful. This is much the same for an in-depth review comparing several products. Reviews tend to have longevity. This is because people trust customer reviews just as much as a personal recommendation, and they trust the opinion of a professional even more.
Guides & How-Tos
Kind of in the same vein of reviews, guides and how-to blogs can help establish your authority and credibility. When done correctly, these posts are insightful tutorials that educate, not only about the topic your post is covering, but also about your business.
Checklists & Other List Posts
Checklists and other list posts containing inbound and outbound links are not only great for SEO, but they also prove very useful for users and can boost user traffic to your website. These are also extremely shareable for social media.
FAQs
FAQs, or Frequently Asked Questions, give you the opportunity to identify the most common questions your customer base may have. This is also a way to anticipate any hang-ups they might have with engaging with your business, and you can explain (in a non-sales pitch way) why they need your expertise.
Interviews & Q&As
Use your connections—or make them—to get productive sit-downs with influencers in your industry, long-time customers, or just downright interesting people that can give relevant insight to your customer base.
Industry News
Keep up with the latest news in your business’s market so you can share findings through your blog, especially if you have a unique take, or spot an interesting trend or pattern.
Guest Blogs & Sponsored Blogs
Take advantage of your partnerships, and potentially forge new ones, by giving opportunities for guest posts on your blog. Sponsored blogs can be similar to product reviews. You can collaborate with an affiliate to create a post centered on one of their products.
Case Studies & Personal Stories
Case studies and personal stories (which can be data-driven/have a tie-in to your business) allow you to use real people and non-contrived narratives as your canvas. They help build your credibility, as well as your brand, while offering something that’s real and will potentially connect with readers.
Opinion Pieces
These can be powerful, because opinion pieces reflect your honest voice, similar to reviews and personal stories. They utilize your professional expertise when discussing a topic that may be contrary to popular opinion, and may even be controversial to some extent. But sometimes that risk can help you stand out against your competitors in a way that isn’t attention seeking, just honest.
Blog Series
A collection of blogs discusses several aspects of a broad topic, typically over the course of a few weeks. This can be a great way to keep people invested in what you have to say, so long as it’s engaging, relevant, and well-researched.
What Types of Blogs Should You Write for Your Business?
There’s a lot to choose from when it comes to figuring out what types of blogs you should write. But diversity is your best option when it comes to creating a dynamic digital content marketing strategy.
If you’re in need of a little more guidance when it comes to creating an efficient strategy tailored for your business, our team of content specialists at local SEO company in Vail, CO can help you develop a creative content plan that works best for you! Contact us today to learn more!
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and support! I followed your blog and look forward to seeing how it develops over time. I’m glad to hear you have such a positive outlook about your diagnosis. Let me know if there is anything I can do as a blogger to support your journey.
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I’m glad I could help you! If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!
ReplyDeleteHats off to you William to acquire knowledge about blogging is something but to share and guiding others is lot more than that, as we know digital marketing evolves everyday is in that note I have learnt ample techniques from your blog!!!
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ReplyDeleteNice Article! My favorite blogs are Niche and Guest Blog. These days I mostly feel that we need to keep our attention on quality content & publishing it regular basis. Google mostly likes regularity within visitors.