5 Types of Highly Effective Blog Posts

Blog posts are one of the most effective tools when it comes to content marketing. That being said, there are many different types of blog posts and not all of them are guaranteed to convert reader to customer. Here at DigitalMarketer, we’ve spent a good amount of time refining our list of the most successful types of blog posts and we thought we’d share them with you in… you guessed it… a blog post (and a video).

In our YouTube series, Marketing Mastery with DigitalMarketer, I talk about the 5 most effective types of blog posts.

So, check out the video, and keep scrolling if you want to read more!

Number 1: Original Research Posts

I asked one of my favorite content marketers (or really marketer in general) Andy Cretodina at Orbit Media if he had to start all over again, what would he do. His response to me was: Original Research. 

People GO NUTS for original research. They read it, share it, interact with it—it’s the CONTENT HOLY GRAIL. 

However, it’s hands down the most difficult and time consuming to produce. You need to put together research questions (avoid as much bias as possible), collect a big enough sample size, parse through the data, visualize the data, and then interpret it in a way that’s useful for your audience. 

It’s a hell of an undertaking, but one of the most fruitful pieces of content you can produce today. Not only will you build up anticipation from the people who took part in research, but your posts will get cited, get oodles of back links, and likely show up in presentations years after the original research went live (even if it’s out of date).

Number 2: Checklist Posts

At DigitalMarketer, we firmly believe that anything and EVERYTHING should be broken down into easy step-by-step checklists… in fact, we built our premium paid content with that philosophy.

Heck, even pilots follow a standardized checklist before they take off. 

Simply put, we think checklists are awesome. 

I mean, who doesn’t want to go through a piece of content that tells them exactly what to do and, if they follow it, they have a deliverable. 

This instantly makes your content actionable for your audience and once they’ve taken one action and gotten over any level of doubt in your brand or self-doubt in themselves, they’ll take another action. 

Posts like, “5 Copywriting Elements You Should Test”, “10-Point Blog Post Audit”, “15-Point Landing Page Checklist”, etc.… are all checklist style posts that generate a deliverable at the end. 

Number 3: Pillar Posts

This is the big dog post. A piece of pillar content is your thesis—it’s why you exist; it separates you from everyone else out there. 

When everyone was focused on Customer Acquisition, we were writing about Customer Value Optimization. That post was our line in the sand and changed how startups and founders approached business growth. 

Then, we realized that CVO was only one (minor) step in the overall ecosystem that was the Customer Value Journey, so we wrote a NEW piece of pillar content that covered the journey and how to apply it in your business.

Pillar content is your evergreen content that becomes your backlink magnet and an amazing way to help you create derivative work for future posts. 

These posts are normally HUGE and should be accompanied by a PDF download so people can read it later. 

If you don’t have a business that can have this level of content that draws a line in the sand, then the other kind of pillar content is creating some kind of Ultimate Guide. 

This won’t differentiate you, but if you build the definitive guide and get it to rank, then you become the authority and you get all the other benefits from pillar content. 

Number 4: Crowdsourced Posts

These have somewhat gone out of style, but I think they’re effective if you get the right people talking about a topic that hasn’t been covered a million times. 

Nobody wants another “Best Practices in Content Marketing, Growth Marketing, Email Marketing from 25 EXPERTS.” 

You have a chance here to create some truly interesting content from people with unique perspectives and authority. 

A major benefit is that this type of content doesn’t require a ton of time to create, it’s stackable, and people like sharing things with their name in it. You’ll get more social traction, borrow authority, and provide different perspectives. 

The best kinds of crowdsourced posts I’ve seen include an overarching narrative that uses expert quotes and responses to further points. This variant of the crowdsourced post takes more time to make, but it is incredibly effective. 

Number 5: Content Aggregator Posts

We should really rename this the “Swipe File” post. Seth Godin said, “All Marketers Are Liars” … well they’re also thieves. 

Who doesn’t have a folder full of email, ad, social, and landing page swipe files? If you don’t… well, you’re the weird one, not me. 

The fact is, we tend to emulate (even when we shouldn’t). Why? Well, that’s a question for another time, but my simple belief is this:

It’s much harder to start with a blank page/canvas/or whatever. 

Swipe files that show examples of Great Instagram video ads with commentary are a great device to help inspire your audience and get those creative juices flowing. 

Even better, this type of content is super shareable and will benefit from backlinks and social traffic. 

So, to recap, if you want better and more shareable blog posts you should try: 

1. Research Posts
2. Checklist Posts
3. Pillar Posts
4. Crowdsourced Post
5. Content Aggregator Post

If you never want to run out of blog post ideas, you can get a list of WAY more post types and examples when you become a DigitalMarketer Insider. If you’re interested, click HERE.

And head over to our YouTube channel for more Marketing Mastery tips.

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