A business blog (such as the one here at Process Street) may instead use a topic relevant to their products audience. 3. Ideally, youll either find a wide-open keyword (which is rare) or a bunch of mediocre lists that you can take, merge, add value to, and sculpt into mega-content. Lists are not rotting your brain or lowering the standards of journalism. 2. Use the same header style to highlight your individual list items, and make sure it stands out. You 100% need a site dedicated to the format for the format to work. How Should You Plan and Write a Listicle? The biggest indicator of a lousy list post is one that contains a ton of fluff and no real, valuable takeaways for the reader. I make each list item stand alone for very long lists and write more robust descriptions for categories. Lists (and listicles) are great to read because: With titles like How to Keep Hair From Getting Greasy you know exactly what youre going to get and whether the article will be useful to you. Entertaining and motivating original stories to help move your visions forward. Lists of actionable steps you can take. A reader who's short on time or not feeling particularly attentive can get maybe 50% of the value of the article by scrolling through it for thirty seconds and reading the list items. I wanted to reach out and share my finished article with you, since your article was super helpful in creating it. And we just feel very comfortable with the idea t of having dealt with a topic conclusively, even if we may be aware that that is, of course, an illusion. Identify The Article Topic. This means that intellectual rather than physical prowess is required. Short listicles are usually between 500 and 1,000 words, while longer listicles are typically around 2,500. The Unforgivable: After serving a prison sentence for a violent crime, a woman attempts to re-enter society and put her life back together in a world that refuses to forgive her past.. 5. Put simply a listicle is an article that includes a list of items. For longer lists, I write shorter descriptions. I'd likely share "13 Influencer Marketing Campaigns to Inspire and Get You Started With Your Own" on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook with colleagues or friends, since I'd imagine my followers would enjoy clicking through visual examples. Step Two: Make Your Pitch Timely. I recommend several shares on social media over a few weeks. You can do several things to ensure that you create great listicles. Heres an excellent example of a recent, high-quality listicle: It has a lengthy intro that digs into the topic and tells you why you should care. For example, unrealistic claims could be: As long as you stay away from making bold claims which are completely (or even mostly) impossible to meet, you should be fine. If your sources have citations, follow them until there are no more links to follow. Even if you don't think you know anything about anything important, don't sweat- just choose a topic and ask 3-4 other people to contribute a . Are they nothing but clickbait? A listicle is a digital text that combines the words "list" and "article.". This advice holds true for most blogging and article writing in general; the key is doing it consciously until it becomes a habit. Here are a few ideas: While this post has shown you how to write a basic listicle, that doesnt mean every list has to be short or easy. Our minds crave organization, even if it's on a subconscious level. However, they offer more value to your readers and will help you earn more money. If everyone else has included minimal detail in their post, you can probably get away with writing only a paragraph or so for each point. The angle needs to provide value that nobody else can; otherwise, your post could be easily eclipsed by someone taking what youve written, adding their own expertise, and not even having to reference you. Highlights: Personalized microlearning, quest-based game narratives, rewards, real-time performance management. Listicles are a suitable format for a site, so long as theyre robust enough in terms of content that can be indexed and so long as they are relevant and full of value. For example, a list of WordPress plugins to boost your SEO. There are many different ways to structure a listicle. Lists of items you want to complete for a task. While you'd initially planned on titling the piece "10 Best Instagram Marketing Tips", your research has uncovered plenty of other angles you'd like to include, such as "why Instagram Marketing is important" and "how to create compelling content on Instagram". listicles game examplesspecialized structures of banana. Games like Hades, Returnal and Deathloop have been great examples of this. For example, a checklist of SEO items to monitor. The primary hallmark of a thin listicle or a clickbait list is that each list item has a heading, but the actual content of each post is an image. The first thing you need to know about writing a good listicle is that there are two kinds: short ones and long ones. Fashion Reels like this highlight how brands can squeeze so much out of a short-form video. Failing to do so only confuses readers, especially when they can't tell that they've moved onto a new item on the list because the header style was inconsistent or under-emphasized. They are, essentially, themed compendia of micro-articles, each one self-contained. Best of all, if readers are already familiar with some steps in the process, they can skip to sections most applicable to them. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. It has been your support, financial and otherwise, that has allowed this site to become what it is today. The format, however, is flexible. Get the list written in its base form, make sure youve covered everything you want to, and look up information from existing sources if needs be. Some listicles explore an incident in your past and how it can help others. It becomes a listicle primarily because its numbered items in an order. Free and premium plans, Content management software. which have been game-changing for us). Disclosure: This website contains affiliate links which benefit the creator, Lori Ballen. Formatting is essential because you want every item on your list to be the same. We think not. Many readers love listicles. The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any. Another best practice is to emphasize your strongest points in the beginning, middle, and end of your list to keep readers engaged throughout. 10) Gift Guide: CNN published a list of 22 Gifts under $25.00. An example is Best Practices for Writing Effective Press Releases. The reason was that they blew up to be so popular, so quickly, that it was all you would ever see on the site for months. Now, you're well on your way to including more listicles in your content strategy. Players will explore Kentucky is a far too realistic simulation that allows them to create their own story. This interactive game allows the player to brush up and practice some common math vocabulary to ease and aid their understanding of the lessons. With content writing, the place to start is with writing. 2022 Lori Ballen | This website contains affiliate links that benefit the site owner. Finally, let's explore some listicle ideas to help your marketing team brainstorm highly engaging content for your readers. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); I was really nervous to have posted a listicle. 3. 4. Listicles are easy to read quickly, which is important for the increasingly fast pace of the modern world. Genre: Time Loop Puzzle Game. If theyre shorter lists, I might go through one after the other, skipping items that are repeated. Look for books that are set in the winter but don't mention ice, snow, cold or other winter words in their titles, for example. Your list, like any other post you write, should flow and tell a story. Examples, Writing Tips, and. 2. 5) 23 Songs To Play You To Sleep Yes, Debussy's "Claire de Lune"! We create blog content that converts - not just for ourselves, but for our clients, too. Metacritic score: 76%. 6) Ways toThe Mayo clinic wrote an article listing 10 ways to reduce blood pressure without medicine. 6) 25 Celebrities That Look Like Mattresses One of my all-time favorite BuzzFeed lists, of course. This is the same reason why updates are easy to make. Write the list. 9) Tags: Tags are an effective way to organize your listicle. . You'll notice that many have numbers in the title"X reasons you should bullet journal" or "X quotes that will inspire you to go to bed early.". This shows visitors that you created the listicle and gives them a reason to visit your website. Use Google Trends, Answer the Public, Ahrefs, etc to identify a [relevant] topic. Lists of tools. Then, we create articles that are 10x better to earn the top spot. Save time creating blog posts with these free templates. This website uses cookies. At best, thats thin content that will get ignored, and at worst, it can penalize you. A list with 17 items draws more attention than a list with 20 items usually. I realized how easily numbers five and six would flow into each other, and how number five would make more sense after discussing points two, three, and four. Doing the actual writing isnt all that difficult, but its easier if youre an expert in the subject or have easy access to the data necessary to make your points. What do you think of listicles? Try another search, and we'll give it our best shot. These Seven CEOs Explain Why. What was penalized was thin listicles with heavy clickbait. Do searches for your keywords and for related keywords to see what comes up. An effective listicle title should accomplish three things in order to entice readers to actually read the post: 1. capture the readers' attention, 2. clearly indicate the value or what the reader will learn, and 3. indicate how much they will learn with a number. var links=w.document.getElementsByTagName("link");for(var i=0;i