Know the different Content Types (Remember that the content is king)
News is the staple of the publishing world. It’s constantly
updating and changing, there is always new source material, and readers
always return for more. The difficulty with news blogs is getting
content before anyone else. Getting the scoop on a big story is
essential to get readers, particularly if you are competing against
popular sites and outlets. If you are angling for a news blog, then you
should consider how you can break stories rather than just reporting
via other news outlets.
Teaching readers how to do something; whether it’s to lose
weight, manage money, or learn a new skill; is another staple of
publishing. The great thing about how-to content is that as long as you
can teach something of value, you’ll always get readers, even if
there are lots of other sites teaching in the same area. People have a
thirst for knowledge and will obsessively read all about their favorite
topic searching for nuggets of information. As always, it helps to have
a differentiating angle, however in education, even just creating a
large resource is often a differentiator.
Opinion content ranges from reviews of products like gadgets and games,
to opinions on the news, to opinions on life. Opinion-based blogs work
best with a strong editorial voice and are often driven by individual
personalities. Virtually all blogs will have at least a dose of opinion
blended in; the choice is really more about what quantity.
Entertainment content is tricky to do well, but if you can manage it,
then it is by its very nature differentiated. That is to say if you are
entertaining people, then you’ve already managed to produce
value. Audiences can never seem to get enough entertainment, so the
throttle here really is that it’s difficult to produce content
that is genuinely engaging.
Aggregation is when a blog exists to filter out quality links, news, and
content around the web. They will often rely on short posts with links
or large lists of “the best” this and that. Aggregation is
surprisingly popular, quite easy to do, and therefore somewhat overdone.
You can also blend content types. A news post could be packaged in the
form of news plus opinion. If the post was about a new gadget being
released, the blogger could then add their opinion about what the
gadget might mean, their take on its utility, or how they personally
would use it.
Which Content Formats to use?
Although blogs are primarily written, there are four different media that are often used on blogs:
Virtually all blogs have a written element to them, whether they are
long articles or short link posts. The big advantage written content
has over
the other three content formats, is that it has far bigger search traffic potential.
For some blogs, photographs are simply accompanying imagery to written posts. For others such as the popular
Recently video blogs have been getting more and more popular.
Podcasts were very popular for a while, but today video has taken that
mantle. As with content types, it’s quite possible to have a
mix of content formats. Certainly written and photographic content are
almost always mixed. More recently video has been making its way onto
sites, particularly as the costs of producing video and audio content
slowly drop.
