11 Types Of Content For The Web
The volume of content that people expect to read and amass has escalated over the past half a decade. If in the earlier times, you could complete an article with just 300-500 words, now the standard trend is to write more than 1000 words, with excellent images accompanying them. People have become so attracted to images and videos that any content without them will not see the light of day. And it is no wonder as well because more and more people are using the Internet these days to do their searches online. If only 1.4 billion people used the Internet in 2008, the numbers have escalated to 3 billion at present. So if your intention is to reach the maximum number of people, you must improvise on the type of content you are generating. And the good news is that you have so many ways to prepare your content. 11 of them are listed below.
1. Lists
As we are talking about 11 types of content for the web, lets talk about the importance of lists first. After all, this is also a “list” article. People are always attracted to “lists”. You can title your articles by saying “Top ways to boost your ranking”, “ or 8 places to visit in Dubai” or even “10 Things Not To Do While Travelling Solo” to attract interest. People are likely to remember such articles rather than merely going on in a textual fashion. And if they get interested, they will most likely share it.
2. “How to” articles
“How to” articles are tutorial kind of articles. For example “How to Grab Attention By Writing Good Content” or “How to Build A Good HR Team” always motivate people to click and read them. It talks about some complicated problem for which you have an answer. Introduce a problem and then provide a solution or different ways through which solutions can be generated. If it is possible, you can create videos of “how to…” articles by showing visual representations, making it all the more appetizing for the reader.
3. Opinion Posts
Everybody in the world has opinions and opinions about a certain subject written by popular people in different fields would definitely be interesting. When a famous person, let’s say for example, the owner of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, writes about the latest trends in Facebook marketing, you can be sure many people would listen to it. You can share such posts in your website or write your own opinion article and invite comments. Not everyone can do this because only people with expert opinion can do such articles, otherwise it will always be a reproduction of what others have written.
4. Infographics
Infographics have been around for some time and it is still popular. Infographics is an ingenious representation of both content and visuals in a cleverly crafted manner. It must not look too crowded, but it should highlight the main features of the subject. For example, if you are talking about marketing trends of 2016, it should contain all the important trends in a very concise manner. Preparing an infographic is not easy and it is definitely not cheap, but catches many eyeballs. You can go a step further and make a gifographic – a combination of animation and content; here the static images will be replaced by animated gif images.
5. Meme Images
Meme images are not very expensive, but have a great impact. They are easy to create as well and you don’t have to be adept graphically to do this well. Though memes won’t be a great choice to post in your blogs, they would be great for the social media channels. Try Meme on Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr and StumbeUpon and see the difference.
6. Videos
Videos are a world in themselves. A well-made video of your products and offerings would bring in a lot of visitors. Videos would be made extraordinarily persuasive because now that people know the importance of videos in their website, they have really started exploiting it. However, informational and educational videos are still in great demand.
7. Guides
This is another version of the regular “how to” articles, but in a more detailed and in-depth manner. Since it is very long, care must be taken to make it interesting and captivating. It would be absolutely drab and boring if you are creating guides just for the sake of creating it. People finding guides interesting can download them as downloadable pdf.
8. Product Reviews
This type of content probably needs no particular introduction because you have done it at some point of time or the other. You can create product reviews by detailing the specific characteristics of your products, how it would help the end user and then provide a call to action at the end of it.
9. Case Studies
Case studies are also self-explanatory because you are talking about your product and how it helped a particular client improve his business or life. Case studies can be real life stories of how your product is, what your product does, what problems your client has and how it helped curb the issue. You can also detail the challenges faced by the client and how using your product has helped them overcome it.
10. Doing research and presenting the facts
Research is a powerful way of presenting factual information. Rather than saying “so many people use the internet” these days, you can say “According to United Nations Agency, 3 million use the internet” these days. This has credibility and is thus a powerful way of communicating with your visitors.
11. Podcasts
Podcasts may not be as popular as it once was. But it still has a niche in the content marketing scenario. You can create excellent podcasts that people can listen to when they travel or do exercises. If you have a technical background and presentation skills, then you can make great podcasts.
Interesting links about the topic:
Types of Content That Work for Any Industry
Type Of Content That People Love To Share
Types of Content That Really Drive Traffic
The author: Reema Oamkumar is engaged as a thought leader at www.Software-Developer-India.com which is a part of the YUHIRO Group. YUHIRO is a German-Indian enterprise which provides programmers to IT companies, agencies and IT departments.