Tips for Writing Great List Posts
List posts may have a bad reputation, but that’s because so many of them contain regurgitated, shallow information. This content form can be interesting, engaging, and highly shareable. List posts work because of their attention-grabbing titles, easy readability, and flexible nature—you can use them to capture an endless variety of topics. Here are a few tips to help you publish list posts that your readers will like and share.
Define your topic
Think about what your topic is and what message you want to communicate to your audience. Knowing exactly how you want to help your readers can transform your article from a random list of mediocre ideas into an engaging and memorable post. Brainstorming works particularly well with list posts. Try writing down as many ideas as you can think of–no editing or censoring. Then, eliminate the ones that seem dull or obvious, and you’ll be left with some fun, engaging, and valuable ideas for your list posts.
Choose your format
There are different types of list posts. You might write a longer list post that’s more of a checklist touching on each idea and linking to more in-depth resources. Or, you may choose to publish a shorter post that offers guidance for each tip. This post may be a step-by-step guide, or it may be a list of ideas in no particular order.
Which format will work best for you depends on the purpose of your content. Do you want to provide a small selection of in-depth tips, a step-by-step plan, or a comprehensive checklist?
Make it readable
There’s more to writing a list post than just writing a list. There are several things that you can do to make your post more attractive, such as captivating your readers with a tantalizing opening paragraph. You can also group a longer list by topic, creating subheadings to keep readers interested and make the post more scannable. Asking questions in your content can help your readers to feel more engaged. Finally, inspire your readers to act with a solid closing paragraph.
Solve a problem
If there’s one surefire way to get people interested in what you have to say, it’s solving a problem for them–especially one that they don’t know they have. The holy grail of problem-solving content reflects a problem that the audience is facing for which they can’t find the help that they need online.
Creating this type of content is always a challenge because it requires finding a gap in the market. Try to identify the top industry pain points that your customers face.
Avoid going overboard
More is not necessarily better when it comes to a list post. Publishing mega-lists of 100+ items is a tactic that might work; however, your readers are unlikely to consume the whole piece. If you do want to create a huge list post, be sure to stack the best points at the beginning. One way to do this is to separate your list post into parts–for example, “The 20 Most Important Things…” and then, “Other Ideas to Consider.” This strategy points the reader to the meat of the content while offering extra material that they might find interesting.
List posts are fun to write and fun to read. Why not try one this week?