Google recommends three types of content for generating more revenue from advertisement programs like AdSense. They are blogs, forums and online tools. These three types of websites attract users with content, community based topics and usage. However, nowadays you can write many other formats of content that is popular among readers. In this article, we will explain top 24 formats for your content. Choose the format that you can handle with confident and start building your online presence.
Related: Types of websites.
Niche and Content Format
For every single search query, Google will show millions of search results. However, there are very few, especially top 5 to 10, sites you can trust and rely on. The problem here is that everyone started blogging and write about topics no way related to them. On other hand, even websites backed by investment agencies have few editors to cover vast scope of topics.
Bad examples are review websites that discuss about hosting, website builders and VPNs. Most of these sites will vanish over the period, as they cannot write reliable reviews without huge investment on buying and testing the products. Good example is to write “How To” format articles on iPhone when own and use an iPhone daily. Therefore, it is essential for you to choose a topic within your capabilities and write in a consistent format.
Top 24 Content Formats for Your Blog
Let us discuss the top 24 formats that can make your blog stand out from the crowd.
1. How-to Tutorial – Guides, Tips, Tricks
This is the easiest way to start your own blogging journey. It will work well especially if you are good at special areas. Instead of choosing generic niches like technology, you can choose the topic from your own experience. For example, if you are having IT consulting experience start a consulting blog to increase your exposure.
Content management systems like WordPress offers easy way to add how to schema to your articles using plugins. This will help highlighting your content in Google rich snippets and drive traffic to your site. Once you have an established site, it is also possible to increase your offerings to online consulting.
2. Listicle
We have written this article in a listicle format listing top 24 content formats for blogging. This is an attractive way for those looking to read about multiple options. For example, you can start a travel blog listing attractions on your country or area.
3. Content Curation and News
Google does not have a policy to penalize duplicate content. Though this is headache for original writers, it is unavoidable for curation and news websites. As long as you provide the source and credit the original author, you can curate content from popular websites to have your own.
4. Case Studies
Case studies are similar to how-to articles with a real examples. For example, if you are a SEO agency then write about “How we increased company A’s traffic by 200%”. This type of article with case studies will reach out targeted audience whom you can later convert to your own customers.
5. Infographics (Illustrations / Charts / Graphs)
Infographics are images that contain details about a process. It can be an illustration, systematic process, chart or a graph. Users can easily share your infographics in social media and you will get a good reputation quickly compared to text content. There are free and premium tools available online to help you creating infographics.
6. Ebooks
It is difficult to find a quality ebook store online. Therefore, launching an online ebook store is another way to start your blog. You have setup your site like an ebook store and write content in ebook format.
7. Reviews
Many users read online reviews before making a purchase decision. You can start a review site and write reviews about the products you use. Google search results will show the reviews with ratings which will attract more users landing on your site. However, you have to spend more efforts to design a review site and invest money in buying the products you want to review. Remember, you can also promote products through your reviews and make handsome affiliate income.
8. Tools
We use lot of online tools on daily basis. For example, we use plagiarism checker tools to check the content duplication before publishing. Below are some of the popular options for having a tools website:
- Offer collection of SEO tools for website optimization.
- Image optimization tools to convert and compress images.
- IP tools to find IP lookup and other details.
- Domain tools like WHOIS, DNS, domain age and hosting checker.
- Color pickers and convertor tools.
- Unit conversion tools.
Each tool on your site can have structured content with introduction and instructions to use.
9. Q&A
Q&A format is very popular with sites like Stack Overflow and Quora. If you are strong in social networks, try to make use of your friends by organizing a Q&A website. This is a good idea for college students to start a Q&A blog and discuss about different subject.
10. Giveaway or Coupons
Nowadays, everyone wants discount and coupons when purchasing online items. Starting from grocery stores to hosting companies, offer discounts to their users. However, there are not many websites collect and offer coupons in an organized manner. You can launch a user-friendly coupons site to kick start your online presence.
11. FAQ
Q&A and FAQ are more or less similar content formats. However, Q&A format allows users to post question while you have to prepare FAQ on your own. For example, you can launch a tech site that explains about using all browsers in FAQ format.
12. Glossary (Dictionary)
Each product uses plenty of unique terms. For example, you will come across hundreds of terms when using blogging platforms like WordPress. Glossary format allows you categorize the terms for a product and explains each term in detail.
13. Online Courses, Webinars and Presentations
The best way to make money online is to launch an online course offerings. You can also use webinars and presentation slides as a format in your courses.
14. Interviews
Do you remember any popular interview sites that broadcast interview discussions? This is a good option if you have frequent opportunities to discuss with popular people. There are not many interview websites available and you can easily beat the competition with little to no marketing effort compared to content blog.
15. Memes
WhatsApp group users distribute millions of memes everyday. However, there are few quality meme websites out there. You can focus on creating quality memes and share in social media to drive traffic to your website.
16. Timeline
Timeline format allows you to showcase the sequential steps happened over a period of time. For example, you can launch a history website that explains historical incidents using timeline format.
17. Forums and User Generated Content
Start your forum site using any pre-defined forum software. User generated content is an easy way to scale up your site in a shorter time. However, you should be expert in your niche and respond to user queries professionally to prove your skills.
18. Formal Content (Press Release, White Papers, Research Papers)
Some freelancers will charge up to 1K dollar for writing a research paper. This works well when you have specialized degrees like PhD.
19. Podcasts
If you are good at speaking, record your podcasts and start a podcasting blog. There are different channels to market your podcasts to get initial traffic. Most cases, you need to use podcasting along with video or text content.
20. Polls / Surveys
There are many free and premium online tools available for creating polls and surveys. Offering a poll and surveys retain your users on the site for long time thus reducing bounce rate.
21. Quizzes
Viral quizzes are popular and easy to get attraction in social media websites. You can create a quiz site dealing with your favorite categories.
22. Templates
There are many templates people buy online. Starting from simple resume template in Microsoft Word format to a complex website templates in PSD format. If you are good at designing, then start selling your templates and help others to make their content stand out with your template design.
23. Marketplace
Marketplaces are very popular for purchasing themes and plugins. If you are interested in coding, marketplace is a best option. You can kick start the marketplace with your own themes, plugins or widgets and invite similar minded authors to sell on your marketplace.
24. Vlog (Videos)
YouTube has changed the internet landscape and nowadays videos are essential part of any blog. Instead of trying with text content like million other blogs, you can try a full-fledged video blog with instructional videos. You can also different video streams depending on your skill like funny or kids videos.
Conclusion
Now the big question on your mind is – which content format to choose? The answer depends on your niche. As mentioned, you can strict to a single review format if you are launching a product review site. However, for a generic tech or web blog, you may need to mix and match different content formats as you need. We strongly recommend you to strict to few formats so that you have sufficient time to invest on writing and content marketing.
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