In the world of content marketing, quality trumps quantity. However, a lot of content marketers forget that they also need to focus on variety. If you keep publishing one type of post, chances are your audience will get bored, and you probably won’t rank as high as brands who take the time to vary their content types and demonstrate their expertise and the value of their website. Here are the six pieces of content for the website you should be producing in 2023.
Interactive Content
Interactive content is a great format for boosting time on the page and customer retention. It gives your audience something to do other than read (or, most likely, scroll) through a post. It makes them feel engaged (or entertained).
There are various types of interactive content you can create: quizzes, interactive infographics, maps, calculators, and the list goes on. When making your choice, make sure it’s what would be most useful or most interesting for your audience.
Take a look at this Words With Friends cheat page. It’s simple to use and highly valuable, and given its interactivity, visitors can spend a lot of time on the page, looking to solve different in-game word conundrums.
A Q&A Style Post
Posts that answer the questions your target audience is typing into the search engine have a much higher chance of ranking than pages that omit this element of research. They are both valuable and informative, and they can also be a great way to further funnel your audience down your conversion path, now that you have their attention.
Creating these posts will take a bit of time, but the effort is certainly worth it. First, you need to identify a topic that is likely on the minds of your audience. Then just start typing into Google search all the different variations and types of questions that are likely to arise on the subject.
Make sure to note down all the “People also ask” questions. Also, take a look at the autosuggestions the search engine provides as soon as you start typing. All of these are the most searched-for questions you certainly want to include in your post.
Take a look at this list of holidays for the US stock market. It starts off as just the list, but given the competitiveness of this type of content, the page is less likely to rank. The brand has overcome this obstacle by adding the Q&A section below.
They give you dozens of answers to all kinds of stock market holiday and closing time questions that are not only of actual interest to readers but will also significantly improve the rankability of the content
A Long-Form Blog Post
Long-form blog posts tend to rank better than shorter posts. This is, of course, not always true, but chances are that a longer, more detailed, and informative post will have a better shot at ranking than a shorter one.
How long a post should be will depend on the topic itself. Don’t try to drag a post out when there is nothing left to say. Long posts need to cover more in-depth topics and provide more value or go into extra detail.
Do some research to pinpoint the topics that would benefit from long posts. Make sure they fit into your overarching content strategy as well since you will need to promote your posts if you want them to attract the right attention. Don’t go for a topic that makes little sense or that you can’t tie back into your product or service.
A How-To Blog Post
Speaking of long-form content, how-to posts are usually a great choice. They benefit from the length and enable you to establish yourself as an authority in your given space and industry. They are also there to solve real problems, so your readers will also find them valuable and insightful.
Again, make sure you are choosing a topic that fits your readers’ needs. Hubspot famously used to have a post on how to create a GIF, which was their most visited post at the time. However, the topic had nothing to do with their product, so they didn’t see any conversions from it. They removed the post in a subsequent audit, but it still serves as a great example of topical (ir)relevance.
Our own post on how to disable .htaccess on your server is a great example of this type of post. It gives you plenty of detail about the file, what it is used for, how to actually disable it, and when. It’s also of relevance to our audience, who come to us looking for WordPress themes and plugins.
A Listicle
Listicle posts are a great way to help your readers digest a lot of information. They can sum up a lot of complex data in a nutshell and help your audience make a decision or just discover different versions of the same item.
These types of posts are usually meant to help readers make a decision. They also naturally provide a lot of insight into a topic and help explain all kinds of concepts. They are also easy to read and often much more engaging than regular posts.
Aim to create listicles that are also shareable online by giving them catchy titles. This will help get you more exposure.
Customer Stories and Testimonials
Finally, you also need to involve some user-generated content on your website. It helps boost sales and conversions in general, as it is inherently more trustworthy than any content you have created yourself. While your goal will naturally always be to promote your product, your clients and customers have no such agenda, so their word can be believed.
Testimonials and customer stories are among the best types of social proof you can use. They will help you describe your product in further detail, and they will often be able to highlight parts of your product or service that you wouldn’t think to mention.
Ideally, you want to place some of your social proof on your homepage. You can also create a dedicated page for them, but it’s likely not going to see nearly as much traffic as your main page.
When selecting the customer quotes you want to include, aim for the ones that shine a light on various aspects of your business. Try to find those that focus on benefits and features you haven’t mentioned a lot yourself.
Wrapping Up
These six types of content will help your website see more traffic from a variety of sources. They will also help you establish yourself as an expert and a trustworthy source of information, boosting your engagement and conversion rates in 2023.