Leafing through a magazine is one of my favourite things to do. I soak in the cover strap lines. I lap up the content pages. I’m captivated by the range of ways the journalists, editors and designers tell their stories. For me, consuming print media is a pleasure that’s probably rooted in my early career as a journalist.
I didn’t always write for digital
I started out as a staff writer for a women’s lifestyle magazine called Scarlet—a sassier, sexier version of Cosmopolitan magazine. Sadly, it didn’t have Cosmo’s longevity.
After Scarlet folded I shifted to digital. As publications moved online and opportunities to create the volume of content they needed grew, my career naturally shifted to deliver what publishers were asking for.
A smattering of Scarlet magazines that survived the shipping from the UK to Australia
I’ve been working in digital media for most of my career. But I’m convinced that when it comes to article formatting and style, print media still beats digital. And that makes sense. Toying with the layout of a print publication is easier than coding. And every layout has its audience and purpose-linked conventions. So you know when you’re reading a news piece, opinion piece, investigative feature, or product feature.
Those conventions blur a little when you look at digital.
And become indistinguishable when you start looking at the articles that businesses are published on their blogs.
Can (or should?) business blog posts try to compete on layout and looks?
Of course they should. And many are successfully publishing a range of different styles of articles that are holding the attention of readers.
If all digital articles had one look, then we’d be picking up newspapers and magazines more than our phones and tablets. But this isn’t the case.
I believe that using print media formatting and structure techniques can really make your blog posts stand out. As a seasoned blog writer since 2011, and a print journalist before that, I’ll show you how.
4 cool client blog posts with structures designed to stand out
How to articles and ultimate guides are popular blog post styles. And while they’re (relatively) easy to write, recent research reveals that they’re not the most popular posts with readers. (More on this in a minute.) So it’s worth publishing a small handful of these sorts of posts each year. But don’t make them the only formats you use. There’s so much more you can do. To show you what, exactly and get you experimenting, here are a handful of stand out blog posts I’ve worked on. Each article offers readers something a little different.
Digital decision tree
Written for Compass Digital Strategies
The topic: Should you outsource your digital marketing or keep it in-house?
The format: If you grew up reading magazines in the 90s and noughties, you’ll remember decision tree quizzes. Their mystic truth-telling powers shone a light on important life questions such as, ‘Does he fancy me back?’ and ‘Which Sega game character am I most like?’ But they weren’t only for trivial, kid-friendly fun. I remember doing some to help me decide which uni to go to or what career path I should choose.
The digital version created for Compass Digital Strategies replaces the tree’s branches with clickable links. You read the question, and pick your answer. Depending on how you’ve answered you jump to the next relevant question in your journey. In a few clicks, you get your results.
Why it works: When my client researched existing blogs on this topic, she wondered if she’d found a Groundhog Day glitch in the matrix. Article after article mindnumbingly listed the pros and cons of outsourcing marketing vs keeping it in house. She wanted something different. And a decision tree was it.
What she and I both love about the format is its interactive qualities. To progress through the article the reader must decide and act. The end result feels personal—its content tailored to their specific set of circumstances. (Without veering into the creepy world of hyper-personalised marketing.)
Involving the audience and asking them to invest in the piece by reading and clicking, can:
- keep them on site
- help develop the relationship between business and reader
- bring warm leads into the business (depending on the final result).
Make it work for your business
Choose a customer pain point (e.g. price, convenience, time, confidence and trust) that can get in the way of people booking your services or buying your product. Use the decision tree format (or a quiz) to guide them through some options to work if your offer is a good fit.
You should also gently point people into the direction of the resources you offer that can help ease their pains. (That might be another article, a low price point product or service, or signing up to emails.)
Screen grab of the Compass Digital Strategies digital decision tree
Reader challenges and games
The topic: Mistress Tracy’s 14 valentine’s chastity challenges and games
The format: To support a Valentine’s Day campaign, the client wanted a series of reader-friendly challenges, ghostwritten for their Mistress. Each challenge was designed to do one or more of the following.
- Promote products.
- Encourage customer engagement.
- Keep the attention of existing customers.
The original plan was to publish the challenges as a single post before Valentine’s Day. But after some discussion, we decided to send each challenge as a daily email. The post in its entirety appeared on the site a little after 14 February.
Why it works: This format works if your readership is large and engaged with your content. Like quizzes, challenges encourage action so the reader is more invested in the content. It’s also a way for a brand to be playful and enhance their connection with the audience beyond the purchase.
My favourite part of this project? Finding ways to promote the brand’s other channels. This client has so much great content on their site and social media platforms. I didn’t want to confine readers’ engagement to the challenges. I wanted them to explore more of the brand and share their experiences of the challenges, building on the strength of the community.
Make it work for your business
Pick one or a few barriers that your clients face when using your product or services, e.g. finding time to do the thing, making the thing part of a routine, using the thing they’ve bought. Set some (fun if possible) challenges to help them break through these limits.
Drip feed your challenges as emails, post a new challenge each day on your blog so people keep coming back to your site, or publish it as a single article. The route you choose will depend on your audience and their internet usage habits.
The introduction to the Valentine’s challenge
Deep research roundup
The topic: Jaw-dropping discoveries: The role teeth play in teaching us about the past
The format: This is a copy and image-led piece. I know that doesn’t sound wild but it’s the depth and quirkiness of the research that makes this blog post stand out. It rounds up historical dentistry and oral health-related discoveries with links to modern dentistry and healthcare. But the real stand out bit is how we related the findings specifically to my client’s values and approach to dentistry.
Why it works: Old school dentistry was terrifying for many patients of a certain age. My client still sees patients with memories of being held down in the dental chair for procedures, not getting the right pain relief, or having generally crappy experiences. Modern dentistry is hyper-focused on shedding that image, replacing people’s negative experiences with positive ones. To achieve that I often write about technological developments that make it less scary.
This article took a different tack. It asked the reader to look back to times when dentistry was, probably, even scarier than their experience. And it highlights the power and importance of teeth. It’s saying, Hey, look at all these really cool things archaeologists and anthropologists have found out about humans as a species. Just by looking at teeth.
The ultimate message is reinforcing how important our teeth are—not just for us using them today. But for what they can tell future us about how we live now. And that’s cool. It feels like there’s a really nice circularity to deep research, historical articles like this.
Make it work for your business
Delve into the murky and the illuminating history of your industry. How have past events, debunked myths, dubious and wise decisions, and technology developments helped form the business, services and products that you offer today?
An excerpt from the Keppel Dental blog
A themed series
Written for Gaia Flowers
The topic: Floral arrangements inspired by iconic Las Vegas casinos
The format: A series of articles published over six-months. They blend storytelling, roundup information and product promotion. Plus a healthy, helpful side serve of local SEO
Why it works: Promoting products and services in blog articles can feel clunky. So when my florist client launched a Las Vegas casino inspired range, they wanted content that promoted and supported the launch, without being too in- your-face salesy.
By focusing the articles on the casinos’ glamourous venues and juicy, chequered histories that inspired the arrangements, we were able to:
- talk about local history so hit some key local search SEO terms
- show off the arrangements in a way that felt natural
- include some original insight as to how the florist comes up with their ideas and their creative design process.
Make it work for your business
Build a story around a product range you want to promote. You may not have the glitz and gore of mob-run casinos to draw on, but your industry will have an angle. Try and work in as many intriguing, off beat facts, people and happenings as you can find. Make sure you dedicate part of your article to explaining how these things influenced the product range you sell, or services you offer.
Publish the story in instalments. Create a series that brings people back to your site. Link the articles to one another so readers spend longer engaging with your business.
The four blogs in the Gaia Flowers casino blog post series
Pressing reasons for mixing up your post styles
Making sure your blog posts rank well in a search engine helps them get seen by your ideal audience. But achieving that is a tough gig right now. Only 20% of professional blog writers report consistently strong results from their published posts. And I expect that number may decrease further as AI overviews sucks more traffic away from sites. From a human perspective, the volume of content continues to feel overwhelming, too. (Around 7.5 million blog posts are published every day.)
Mixing up the style of your posts is a great way to put your articles on the path to success. And while I appreciate it’s (nearly) always easier to knock out a ‘how to’ post or ultimate guide, the truth is that they’re just not that popular with readers.
According to the latest findings from the Annual Blogger Survey, the most effective content formats are:
- roundups
- infographics
- original research pieces
- interviews and webinars.
These posts rely on original quotes and findings, and telling stories that haven’t yet been told. In short, they offer insights that AI can’t because the information is fresh and experiential in that uniquely human way.
Read the complete roundup: Blogging isn’t dead. 9 statistics to bring your posts bang up to date.
Which strong blog post style will you try next?
For your next blog post, I challenge you to shelve the ‘how to’ article or guide. And post something different.
Sure, a quiz post might take a little longer to format; a roundup a little longer to research; a series of posts a little longer to plan. But your audience will notice and appreciate the difference. (As soon as I have more supporting stats around how well these posts are performing for my clients, I’ll be back with those numbers.)
Comment to let me know which one you might try. Or, once you’ve got it written, put the post through my free copywriting review service.
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