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Your main goal in writing blog posts is to attract readers and potential customers, right? Well, it’s simple to come up with a killer title that will get your visitors to click on your post to read more, but if your blog post isn’t that great, you’re going to lose them and they may not come back.
So if you want to learn how to write a blog post that drives traffic and engages your audience, read on. I’m listing eight different types of blog posts that generate the traffic and engagement your blog needs.
If you take away anything from this post, take away this:
Each one of your blog posts should be crafted to help your readers and provide them with value.
Sure, you’re most likely trying to make money from the posts or are writing them to drive traffic to your blog, but this shouldn’t be the main goal of your blog posts. Your main goal should be to provide your readers with useful, informative and value. They should be able to take something away from it whether that be an answer to a question they have, a solution to a problem they have or information they’re looking for.
If your blog content achieves these things, they’ll keep coming back to read more. They may subscribe to your email list and chances are great they’ll definitely share it with their audience if they found value in it.
Blogging for money works. You see that all over the Internet with people sharing their income reports, testimonials, blog comments and other things. For it to work for you, however, you must be creating engaging traffic-driving posts.
You may also be interested in:
How to Set Up Your Money Making Blog
6 Out-of-the-Box Ways to Make Money Online
Learn How to Make Money Blogging – The Wealthy Affiliate Review
Okay, before I dive into the types of blog posts that will drive traffic to your blog (and money), I just want to get these four pieces of content you should post on your blog first out of the way. These are NOT the 8 blog posts that make you money and drive traffic, but they are IMPORTANT and should be your very first pieces of content. Don’t skip through this section either, as some are required. These are your:
Yeah, they’re not the most exciting pages (except for the about me page), but they’re necessary. I’ve linked each of these to my pages so you can get an idea of what each entails.
But basically, your about me page is exactly that — about you and what your readers can learn about you. Who you are, what your vision of your blog is, how you got into blogging, things like that. Make this page fun and go into detail. Trust me, your readers will want to know about you.
Your contact page is just a way for your readers to contact you when needed. It can be as easy as slapping up a simple contact form. There are many contact form plugins to choose from. Contact Form 7 is a popular one.
Your disclosure policy is absolutely important and required if you plan on making money from your blog whether that be through affiliate marketing, running ads, sponsored posts or other ways to blog for money. You can take a look at mine to get an idea of what you need to include in your disclosure.
Your privacy policy basically lets your visitors know what data you’re collecting from them and what you plan on doing with it. It lets them know how you will be collecting this data whether it be through cookies or an email form, etc. Again, take a look at mine. Here’s a free privacy policy sample I found that you may find useful.
Okay, now that we have those four pages out of the way, we’re going to get into how to write a good blog post that will draw in your readers’ attention and knock them off their feet where they’ll just naturally want to share your content or buy something from it.
One more thing before I get into these types of blog posts.
Don’t forget about keywords. Adding targeted keywords to your blog posts will help get your posts ranked in search engines and help people find your content better. To have better chances of ranking higher up in Google or other search engines, go for the long-tail keywords instead of the broad ones.
For example, instead of trying to rank your blog post for the keyword “make money online” which is super competitive, go for “how to make money online” or “ways to make money online”, terms like that. This gives you a better chance of ranking your blog posts so people will find you organically.
You can use Google’s Keyword Planner Tool to find those long-tail keywords, or what I use is the Jaaxy Advanced Keyword Tool. I prefer this tool over the Keyword Planner because you can do so much more with it than simply find keywords. Some things you can also do with this tool are:
- See how your site is ranked (where you are exactly in Google)
- Save keyword lists
- Create niche keyword lists
- Analyze your competition and discover SEO trends
- Explore millions of keywords and niches
- Find popular, trending and profitable ideas
- Find affiliate programs in your niche
- and more
When you’re searching keywords in the Jaxxy tool, it not only provides you with hundreds of related keywords (you can pick a few and sprinkle them in your posts), it gives you the average number of monthly searches for your keyword, an estimate of how many website visits you’ll get each month if you rank for that keyword on the first page, the number of competitors ranking the first page for that keyword, how likely you are to rank for that keyword and more. Try it out.
Blog Post Types that Drive Traffic
These are also blog posts that make you money when you monetize them properly.
1. Tutorials and How-to’s
How-to’s and tutorials are very effective. Consider this — typically when people go on the Internet, it’s often because they’re looking for information on how to do something, right? Sure, they go online to chat with their friends on Facebook or check their email. But, a lot of the time, they want to learn something new.
When people go online because they have a problem and need a solution, your post can be right there providing them with a step-by-step how to. Just be sure you break your how-to’s down into small bite-sized steps.
2. Listicles
Lists are popular and are often shared. They’re also easy to create because you can make a list of pretty much anything you want really. Maybe it’s a list of the most helpful bloggers or a list of your favorite restaurants. You can create a list of different kids activities or books to read.
Now, don’t just create any list, make a long list post. Long lists:
- Show your expertise
- Are scannable and simple to read
- Extremely informative
- Very actionable for your readers
Long lists often provide so much information, your readers will need to come back to learn or implement everything you’ve listed.
Wanna learn how to write one?
1. Identify your topic.
2. Jot down the important points you want to make.
3. Create an eye-catching headline that includes how many items you have on your list (i.e. 7 Hair Styles to Die For)
4. Add lots of images to your post
5. Add social share buttons
6. Make your list longer than other list posts on the same topic
7. Include a CTA at the end (give away a freebie in exchange for their email address)
Just don’t take away from the post with too much promotion. A simple one or two line call-to-action will do.
3. Interviews
With interview posts, you get to speak with experts in your niche or topic of your post. And, chances are, you’re going to learn something from them. Plus, interviews can add credibility to your posts. Not to mention, they may even turn around and share the interview with their followers and readers which will give your blog traffic a huge boost.
4. Long Quality Posts
These days with Google’s new algorithm and other changes in blogging and online marketing, quality content is crucial. You no longer can slap up a bunch of 300-word posts on your blog and expect a huge response. Both search engines and your audience are looking for engaging, quality content. And, this usually works best when you can offer them a 1,500 to 2,000 or more word blog post.
Don’t believe me?
HubSpot ran an analysis on over 6,000 of their published articles and found the posts that were at least 2000 words received the most shares on social media, the most organic traffic, and the most inbound links.
Aside from search engines and social media, long quality content just offers your audience huge value. Each long blog post you create will work for you for years down the road. So sure, maybe it takes you an hour or a day to come up with the post, but imagine the impact that one post will have long-term on your blot as it builds up authority, shares and conversions. Now, imagine if you had 20 of those high-quality, long pieces working for you?
This doesn’t mean you can’t create infographics or shorter posts on your blog. Your audience might prefer shorter, more simple content. Ask them what they’d like to see more of. Go ahead and keep creating these types of posts too, but be sure to add in at least 10 to 20 pillar posts for credibility and search engine friendliness.
5. Case Studies
Case studies can actually be huge traffic-generating resources for your blog. People love hearing other people’s success stories or personal triumph stories. Cases studies help lay out the process for others and show proof of what can be accomplished. They give people hope and motivation. They offer tremendous value to your blog.
Case studies are an excellent way for you to show your readers how a certain product or strategy worked for others and how it can work for them as well.
6. Series
Article series can help you break down extremely long information. While I did say that long posts more than 2,000 words are good quality, pieces that start getting into the 3,000 to 4,000+ word range can get overwhelming and may actually lose your readers because their so excessively long and most people are busy and are just looking for a quick way to solve their problem.
If you have a topic you know will require you to go into a lot of detail or if there’s simply a lot to learn on this one particular topic, why not break it up into a series? Article series are not only user-friendly, they’ll also keep readers on your blog longer, while still providing your reader with value.
Now, there may be people who like receiving the information all at once, but many will only skim quickly through a very long post and might not even make it to the end. So, what you can do here is create a series of posts for the topic and link them together so the reader who wants it all now, can simply click over to the next series and those who become overwhelmed easily will have easier, shorter posts to digest.
7. List of Resources
These posts can take a long time to craft up because of all the research they entail. But, they are extremely helpful for your visitors and if you can get through one, it will have a huge, positive impact on both your blog and you as your readers will consider you a “go-to” person to get valuable tools and resources.
8. Product Reviews
Many blogs eventually start reviewing products to generate revenue through either affiliate programs or direct sales. But, to do this right, you have to be honest and thorough. You have to keep your readers in mind and not your income. Write product reviews that will genuinely help your readers make a buying decision.
Don’t try to persuade them to buy the product, instead try to give them all the information possible about the product, including pros and cons so they can make an informed decision on whether to buy it or not.
Chances are high if you write an honest unbiased review on a product and provide your readers with quality information, both the good and the bad), if they do decide to buy the product, they’ll like buy from you before the person who was obviously just trying to sell them on their affiliate product so they could make a commission.
A good review will answer your reader’s questions such as:
- How does the product work or what does it do?
- How much does the product cost?
- What is great about the product?
- What is bad about the product?
- Why is this product different from the competition?
- Where can you buy the product?
- What is the rating of the product?
These are just some examples of questions your visitors may be asking themselves when in the middle of making a buying decision. And if you can answer these questions for them, they’ll be more likely to trust you over another seller.
So there you have it. While there are tons of different types of blog posts you can write to drive traffic to your site, these are just some of the most common. Experiment a little and see how your audience responds. Just remember to be honest, insightful and provide as much value to your readers as you can. Have fun with this. It’s your blog and you can create it any way you want.
Want another way to drive traffic to your blog? Check out Boost Your Blog Traffic. Learn 100+ Blog Traffic Tips and Strategies, a comprehensive SEO tutorial, social media strategy, detailed Pinterest tutorial and more. Boost Your Blog Traffic will help you grow your blog and gain an audience who can’t wait to see what you post next. Your blog will become profitable and things will finally start coming together where you’re getting traffic to your blog even when you’re not trying. Trust me, Anna knows her stuff!
Check it out. Cause we LOVE helping you to grow your new blog. 🙂
These posts will also help you make money both with and without blogging:
How to Set Up Your Money Making Blog
6 Out-of-the-Box Ways to Make Money Online
Learn How to Make Money Blogging – The Wealthy Affiliate Review
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