Why Lists Articles Are Great For Content Marketing

Lists offer an easy-to-develop form of content. Take advantage of this by including a regular feature such as a news roundup. For example, List25 and 12Most are two media sites that use lists as the heart of their content structure.

Part of the beauty of lists for readers is that they’re bite-size portions of content.

Each item should directly relate to the title of the list. For best SEO, use appropriate keywords that you use in your business.

Guide the readers through your content as efficiently as possible. The most common formats are bolding or italics. They should be visually rendered consistent with your brand. Alternatively, include a photograph or other graphic with each point to make them visually attractive.

Lists help consumers keep track of what they have to do or allow them to test if they’re on track. If it’s appropriate, add check boxes to allow readers to physically check points off. Checklists can make good PDFs or downloads. Depending on your product offering, integrate links to your product into your content.

While readers may not agree with the entire list of information, they might share specific points. Where possible make this easy and remind readers to share the information. This allows you to share your content on social media platforms with different commentary over time. To encourage social sharing, incorporate a contextually relevant call-to-action.

Design a special look for list posts to enhance the visual quality of your site’s lists through the use of design, color and bullet format. Use an actual list element otherwise search bots won’t read your list as a list.

Does the sequence of points matter to the reader? If not use bullet points (this suggests equal weighting). If the sequence matters, then use numbers to organize content. Note: this point has relevance for search bots as well.

When separated from the rest of your article, does the point make sense?

Consider how you can extend the value of this content marketing in other contexts. Among the options are socially share each list point on social media, create a presentation using each point as a slide topic or offer a download for your readers’ use.

Research has shown odd numbers attract more attention than even ones. Among the exceptions are 10, 12 and 100 which are natural milestones.

To leverage the power of the list, include the number of points in your article title or a second-level heading. This will help increase your readership.

By their nature, lists posts or articles can be created by a number of people. This allows you to gather input from a variety of resources as well as reducing the workload per person.

While this sounds counter-intuitive, stop one or two points short of your total number of points to allow readers to complete the list in the comment section. The unfinished nature of this type of post encourages people to contribute to your post.

Lists allow readers to easily scan through your content to find what they need. Alot of times people are looking for quick answers and don't have time to read through your entire blog post.