Listicles (list articles) are a popular type of content. These types of content essentially show a list of relevant items along with information regarding each one. They are kind of like micro reviews. However, they can also lead to a vast amount of content that has great potential for attracting an audience.
In fact, a single listicle can deliver over a hundred ideas for future content, keeping you writing for several months. Well, that is unless you feed the ideas into generative AI and are OK with publishing half-assed material slop.
Anyway, let’s dive into just how expansive a single listicle can be for virtually any blog.
It Starts with a Single Listicle
You’ve probably seen, or at least know about, BuzzFeed, the site that made listicles a mainstay of its content strategy. Since then, millions of websites have duplicated the process and have created lists for just about anything you can think of.
However, a lot of bloggers stop at the list and move on to something else. In reality, the listicle can lay the groundwork for a lot of articles and/or YouTube videos.
Let’s start with an example listicle: 10 Health and Fitness Apps You Should Try Today.
In this example article, we would list 10 health and fitness apps that are amazing from your perspective. I mean, if you’re telling people they should try them today, they’ll need to be pretty good. And you don’t want to simply regurgitate lists that are already available online.
Your listicle needs to come from your perspective and opinion. This adds to authenticity, especially when you point out what you love and hate about any particular item.
This is why it takes so long for me to create listicles for my blogs. I don’t write about something unless I’ve used it or am currently using it. Thus, some of my readers and viewers call the content “authentic.”
Unfortunately, it’s also why a lot of brands won’t work with me. If there is something wrong with a product or if it comes up short on a certain point, I let my audience know. Brands don’t like it when you point out their shortcomings.
Anyway, create a list of something valuable to you or your website. Stick with your niche (if you have one) and build a list of relevant things that go together. In my example, we’re putting together a list of health and fitness apps.
How Long Should Each Point Be?
A listicle is usually a quick-fire response to a certain topic. In our example of 10 fitness apps, each one would be a quick overview of what is good and bad about the app.
Some of my best listicles (for myself and clients) featured between 200 and 300 words per item. However, I’ve had a few that performed relatively well that had between 150 and 175 words.
You don’t want a full-on lengthy review of each item. You want to pique the interest of the individual, which then we can link them to the longer reviews.
A good rule of thumb for myself is aiming for about four or five short paragraphs. But it also depends on the item and the list itself. Some might benefit from more detail while others will perform better with a single sentence.
Expanding Into Reviews
Once the listicle is made, it’s time to expand into writing some reviews. According to my example above, this gives us a total of 10 reviews, one for each app.
The main listicle is more like a teaser. You want to highlight the major benefits and drawbacks within 200 to 300 words for each item. A full-on review, on the other hand, is far more detailed and extensive.
Some of my best-performing reviews range between 2000 and 3000 words. I try to point out all of the good and bad parts of the product or service that anyone reading might want to know. So, they usually take much longer to write, as I detail my experiences with each item.
Write Tutorials from the Reviews
Tutorials are another staple of most blogs, especially technical ones. Teaching someone how to use a product efficiently can drive a lot of traffic to your site. That is, as long as people want to know how to use something. An obscure product or service might not get a lot of attention.
One of my top articles and videos on the YouTube channel is on the topic of using Reedsy Studio to write and publish a book. The video version is also where most of my subscribers are coming from each month.
You can nearly create tutorials for any item on a listicle. In this case, we could create about five tutorials for each fitness app (possibly more) or show people some great tips and tricks to use with the product.
In this example, I’m going to be a bit conservative and say five tutorials per item.
Create Side-by-Side Comparisons
Sometime after the reviews, we could create side-by-side comparisons of those apps from the listicle. This could theoretically give us more than 40 ideas for comparison articles.
For instance, we could do something like app #1 vs app #2. Or, we could do app #1 vs app #4 vs app #7.
Comparison content is nearly as effective as reviews, especially if you’re comparing popular products or services. Since people research products and compare before making purchases, the “vs” title is exceptionally popular.
How Many Posts Come from a Single Listicle?
As you can see, a single listicle can branch off into all kinds of content. Just remember that you need to add value and personal experience to appease your human and search engine bot readers or viewers.
So, how many articles can our fitness app listicle example fuel? Let’s take a look:
- 1 Listicle
- 10 Reviews
- 50 Tutorials
- 42 Comparisons
From a single listicle, we can create 103 pieces of content. In reality, you could probably create more, depending on how many tutorials, tips, and tricks you can come up with. And that’s not counting the various ways you can set up comparison articles.
Since I aim to publish three articles per week, our example listicle would give me a content schedule for the next eight and a half months.
Also, keep in mind that we only used 10 apps in this example. Adding one more to the list could expand the number by 15 or more.
Monetizing All of That Content!
Theoretically, you could monetize a large portion of the content with affiliate links. That is, as long as the items in your list are products or services that can be sold.
Let’s say you created a list of your favorite horror novels. You could add an Amazon affiliate link where people can buy each one.
The only style of content that might not pull in a lot of affiliate sales would be tutorials. People already have the product or service; they just want to learn how to use it. Yet, you could write and sell an eBook regarding those tutorials that dives deeper into the information.
Although the chances of making a sale from tutorials are lower, you should still write them. Not only are tutorials helpful for your readers, but they also signal to Google that you are an expert in your field. Tutorials boost your reputation overall, which is always a good thing.
Not every item in your list will have an affiliate program. And you don’t need to sign up as an affiliate to add them to the list. You could create your listicle of things that you enjoy and then search for monetization methods afterward.
The bottom line is that there are several ways you can monetize all of those articles in our example beyond ad revenue.
Linking All the Content Together
Perhaps one of the most important things to remember is to link all of that content together. Create links from your listicles to the reviews and back. You can do the same with the tutorials.
This creates a web of importance for relevant content. Not only does it help your audience find those pieces of information, but it demonstrates to Google and other search engines the importance of those articles.
Just make sure you are creating links that are relevant and in context. You can’t just slap a link on something that has nothing to do with the article’s content and expect good things. In fact, search engines hate link stuffing in such a fashion.
For instance, if you’re writing a tutorial about one product, it wouldn’t make sense to link to a tutorial about another.
Think of links as a way to expand on the content. They need to add value and support the material, as an extension of the main topic.
Listicles Work for Any Niche
Virtually any niche can benefit from a properly assembled listicle. They are quite versatile and can be used in a plethora of ways to promote virtually anything. And if you offer high-quality information and value, they could be instrumental in driving a lot of traffic to your website or YouTube channel.
The hardest part is putting listicles together in the first place. You want to offer something unique, especially since so many people use them. In other words, you don’t want to copy the same list everyone else has on the Internet. Yes, you’ll be reviewing similar products, but you need to offer greater value than the competition.
You want people to visit your site and feel fulfilled without having to go back to search for the same query. Of course, that’s true no matter what you’re creating, whether it’s a listicle or a tutorial.
At the end of the day, if you’re not sure where to start with content, create a listicle of something relevant for your blog and expand. It’s a solid way to build a content strategy while fueling ideas for months to come.
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