Do you want to know a secret? Writers struggle with a blank screen. No, not the kind that happens when there is a white screen of death, but a blank screen from not knowing what the write.
Yeah, it happens to writers too, not just WordPress professionals. Sometimes, you just need a little guide to help you along the way.
How many hours did you work yesterday on a client project? Was it 10 hours? 12 hours? Face it; you spend the vast majority of time working on projects for your clients. Running your blog is a difficult task, mostly, because you simply don’t have the time.
After all, you have to come up with ideas, choose topics that will benefit your client, write the content, and then promote the content.
Often knowing what you are going to write is the worst part.
Today, we are going to look at five types of blog posts that are super easy to implement as soon as you can.
1. Product Review
What
A review is a post where you simply review a tool or product. You are free to say what you do or don’t like about the tool or product. Make sure you aren’t reviewing something in which your audience is disinterested. For example, if your audience is small business owners, they won’t care about a development tool.
How
Create a simple template to guide you. It will help you have a format to follow and keep your writing on point. Then, each time you review a product, you just follow your format.
You can have a more thorough review or highlight a few features.
Check out this review of Optinmonster at WP Sitecare.
The Ultimate OptinMonster Review
2. Case Study
What
A case study is a documented writing about solving a problem for a customer or client. They are so important that people pay good money to get high-quality case studies created as a part of their sales library. Another option is to create blog post case studies which become a part of your regular blog posts. You don’t have to create many, but a few will help make a difference.
How
To create a case study — or a customer success story as I like to call them — you will need document the problem, the solution you provided, and the results you attained for the client. This goes a tad deeper than a regular portfolio piece.
Making a better case study requires interviewing the client to ask some pointed questions to get the best answers.
Check out the case study from Graph Paper Press:
Case Study: How Creatives Use WordPress
3. Tutorials
What
Tutorial posts are just that, tutorials. Here you write a step by step guide on how to do something. This is useful for tools and practices that your target audience uses. For example, write a guide on how to set up a web form using WP Forms.
How
To do a good tutorial, you will need to document your step by step using screenshots and preferably referring to each step precisely. Check out this post from Andrea Whitmer.
How to Build a Genesis Landing Page with Advanced Custom Fields
4. Story-Based Posts
What
A Story Based post, as I call them, is a post where you wrap your thoughts into a narrative, usually yours. You will want to write about a lesson or some thought about a higher level topics such as entrepreneurship. This will help the experience resonate with your target audience.
How
As an example of this kind of post, I am turning to this post by my friend Sarah Dlin who talks about changing fields in the middle of her career.
What joining a startup taught this 40 year-old about the necessity of risk
Sarah talks about all of the issues surrounding why she changed fields and how it happened.
5. Q & A Interviews
What
A question and answer interview is implemented relatively easily. Usually, the biggest holdup is with email the questions and getting the answers back. Some of the best blog posts we have here at MainWP are Q&A.
How
You create questions that many people would want to know. Over the past few years, I’ve developed a library of questions from which I use to choose questions. They are usually based on entrepreneurship or the field of interest (i.e., WordPress)
Take a look at the Q&A we did with Viktor Nagornyy. It was one of our most popular posts.
Q&A with WordPress Entrepreneur Viktor Nagornyy
Conclusion
Tapping into these blog post types can keep you going when you have little idea about what you want to write. I didn’t say they were easy to do, but they are easy to help you come up with ideas and rela1tively simple to execute.
What kind of blog post types do you like to create? What is your go-to blog post type? Let us know in the comments below.
