The wonderful thing about blogs today is they don’t have to be boring and only include text content. You can get creative and include all kinds of content on your blog. The more types of content that you include, the more interesting it will be for your audience. They’ll want to read more, engage more, and even buy more when you have more creative content, especially when that content is authentic and shows your transparency. Make your blog interactive, fun, and interesting. Mixing the content format up on your blog is also good for search engine optimization (SEO) of your website and blog. Just make sure the content is researched first and that your blog solves a problem that your target customer is having.

Infographics

Creating infographics for your blog is an effective way to provide valuable information while encouraging people to share something visually appealing. An infographic is a pictorial depiction of data put together in an interesting way. Most infographics are long and can include a lot of data. If you have any data-centric blog posts or informational articles, consider making them into an infographic. But infographics don’t have to be long to be successful. An infographic can be an image of any size or shape and about any type of information. You can use charts, statistics, step-by-step instructions, or even facts like the one you see to the right.

There are many places online you can create infographics such as Canva or Pikochart without needing design experience. Try to include great infographics loaded with valuable data. Images grab more attention and have a higher probability to be shared by others. You may even find yours goes viral which is great for website traffic.

Presentations & Slideshows

Just like infographics, presentations and slideshows are effective ways to share insights and information in a visual format. Slideshows are easy to create with software like PowerPoint for windows and Keynote for mac. And if you’re looking for an online tool, Adobe Express, and Canva are great places to put your presentations together for free.

For inspiration, check out SlideShare. But remember, you should keep your content high quality and informative to offer the best value to your readers. Speaking of SlideShare – it’s a great platform to share your presentations like the one I did on reducing workplace stress plus, you could even repurpose your existing content into a presentation.

Surveys, Quizzes, & Polls

Understanding the behavior and needs of your clients is key to making the most of your marketing budget. Surveys and polls are two ways to gather data from your customers. Then you can tailor your marketing efforts around the conclusions of the survey or poll. Check out this website survey form I created using my personal favorite online site Jotform.

Have you ever used the poll features on Facebook and Twitter? It’s simple, isn’t it? Polls and surveys are quick ways to get the opinions of your audience and the answers you receive can be put to good use in future blog posts. Creating a poll or a survey on your blog is easy with tools like Typeform or Survey Monkey available, with many of them including features to embed your survey into your blog posts. We’re all guilty of taking part in a silly online quiz now and then. Posting a quiz on your blog can be a fun way of engaging with your audience. Not only does it provide them with a fun, interactive activity, but it can also help you learn more about your readers.

Contests & Giveaways

A contest or giveaway may sound like hard work for a small blog or business. But the truth is that is simple in addition to creating more interactivity for customer engagement. It is important to think about your goal for running the contest:

• Do you want to up your email marketing game? Build and contest where people have to opt-in to your list.

• Are you trying to build your social presence? Ask your followers to share or retweet the contest.

• Are you thinking about a new product or service? Ask your customers to fill out a survey or poll and reward them for their opinion.

Once you have your goal in mind, you can build your giveaway around this. Offer a prize your audience would appreciate. Remember, the most effective giveaways don’t cost much to run. You’ll need a tool to help you manage your giveaways, though. Two options for this are SweepWidget or Outgrow.

Video Tutorials

You can easily create videos using your webcam to educate your audience, or using software like Techsmith, Freecam, or Screencast. A video tutorial is a type of instructional video that comprises a set of recorded steps on how to do something. Video tutorials come in a variety of forms: demonstration videos, simulations, how-to videos, and recorded lessons. Video brings a brand-new element to your blog that is truly unsurpassed in opportunity. If writing full guides on a subject seem too daunting for you, you can always create a video tutorial instead. Video is hugely popular – sometimes more popular than the written word, so utilizing it in your blog makes a lot of sense.

Your options for the methods of making video tutorials include:

• Filming yourself explaining things

• Filming a screencast of you performing the tutorial steps

• Filming a screencast with a voice-over explaining as you go through the steps.

When posting your tutorial to your blog, you can either host the video directly on your website by uploading it. Or you could upload it to a video hosting site like YouTube or Vimeo and embed it in a blog post on your site. Updating your blog in video format can have many benefits for your site.

• Videos are shorter

• You personally and visually connect with your audience

• They’re popular sharing fodder

• Many social networks prioritize visual over written content

And even better, embedding your YouTube videos on your website, provides more places for people to view your content and for you to encourage them to follow you on YouTube.

Memes & GIFs

‘A picture is worth a thousand words’

This might be an overused adage, but it still rings true in many situations. You can use beautiful imagery, quotes, facts, and data to create pictorial images that are about 350x350 pixels depending on where you use them. You can put them on your blog; share them on social media, and more. Memes and GIFs are excellent ways to get people engaged and sharing your content. We all love a good meme and with access to thousands of them online, you can dedicate an entire post about them. Collect your favorite memes and GIFs that are relevant to your niche and share them with your readers.

You could even make your own by using a meme generator. Consider adding amusing GIFs for a greater effect like I did for one of my branding projects. Giphy is easy and fun to use when making GIFs. The idea is to mix things up with a visual appeal with the hopes that your meme or GIF gets shared. When you’re stuck or just need a break from writing, a blog post of imagery with some captions can get your message across just as effectively. Often, they need no explanation.

Podcasts

Podcasts are super popular; people can download them and listen to them later in the day or when on the road. You can turn any blog post into a podcast by recording it using software already on your computer. One of the easiest ways to begin is to upload the MP3 of your podcast and publish it on your blog with a written transcription. The podcasting industry is booming these days, with new podcasts popping up all over the place. An alternative to using video tutorials, podcasting can develop into full online shows that take off on their own because there is a huge market of people who love podcasts. As your audio presence grows, you can branch out to platforms like iTunes, Spotify, and Soundcloud to publish your podcast too. And don't forget, cross-posting on other platforms provides more places for people to subscribe while driving traffic back to your website.

Behind the Scenes

Know that your blog audience wants to get to know you and you want them to trust you. What better way to do this than to provide them with a behind-the-scenes blog post? This is an easy and great way to show transparency and remain authentic with your clients. Plus, building a personal connection with your audience is a great way to keep them engaged. Why not show them what a day in your life behind the scenes looks like? You could post a shared gallery as I wrote about in "8 Ways to Make Your Website Interactive and Why You Should" with your office setup followed by some of the processes you use to maintain your blog. Or even better, create a behind-the-scenes video showing how you work. The sky is the limit when thinking about what kind of behind-the-scenes posts you can share with your clients.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

FAQs work well as blog posts because the content is likely something your readers have already been searching for answers to. You could create a poll or survey asking readers what kinds of questions they feel are important and then create the FAQ post around your results. This process is just one more way to include your customers, making them trust you more while answering the pain points around frequently asked questions. More importantly, this form of content is often evergreen, meaning the information will be relevant to people for a long time into the future.

Inspirational Stories

Why not step away from the same old content and share some good news? Write about a new milestone your blog has reached. Or share an inspirational story of how you got started in your industry. What happened to get you to the point you’re at today? People love inspirational stories because it makes them realize we are all in this thing called life together. Inspirational success stories give people hope and you may even touch on a pain point for a website visitor that feels alone. We’re all striving for something better in our lives – your success story will help your readers to continue to reach for their goals too. A well-documented success story is all about the ups and downs somebody faces during his/her journey making your success story blog posts a good source of motivation for your readers.

There will always be a time during your blogging journey when you just don’t know what to write about. Whether it is writer's block or you're simply out of ideas, it can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Instead of pushing through with the same "written format" content, utilize creative thinking to turn your blog into a visually impressive online home too.

Do you need some help setting up your blog? Is your current website not working for you? Are you looking to expand your website functionality? Email me with any questions you may have. Want to talk about your project first? Schedule your FREE 1 hour consult. Or just go ahead and fill out my new project information form and let's work together!

Regards,

Holley