4 Different Types of Content You Can Use On Your Website

Not all content is created equal! There are so many different types of content that you can add to your website, and each serves its own purpose. Some content helps establish relationships with your audience, and others help build brand authority online. Some content can garner you lots of shares and backlinks, while others provide users with valuable information. 

In this blog post, we’ll discuss four different types of content that you can use on your website. Not every type of content may work for your particular industry or business, but experimenting is the only way to find out!

4 Different types of content you can use on your website:

• Blog posts,
• Longform content,
• Case studies,
• Infographics.

1. Blog posts

Blog posts should be the bare minimum when it comes to creating content for your website. If you’re only planning on committing to one type of content, make it this one. Blog posts serve SEO strategies and help distribute your brand’s perspectives, narratives, and information to your audience. They’re easily crawled by search engines and therefore help to increase rankings without being too demanding or labour intensive. 

A high quality blog post should be easy to read, informative, and always offer value to the user. They are fantastic for building relationships with your audience, establishing your brand’s personality and tone of voice, and nurturing users so that they convert. There are many different types of blog posts or articles that you can make, including company news, industry news, informative articles, entertaining reads, and so on. 

Ideally, blog posts should mention your business service/offerings in an indirect way. They should use relevant keywords to your business so that they attract the right audiences and have information about how your product/services can provide a solution to a particular problem. It’s always a good idea to include a CTA at the bottom of a blog post if relevant. 

Some tips for your blog posts:

• Always pad out your blog posts with images, subheadings, and bullet points where possible. Long blocks of text can be intimidating and unfriendly to users. 
• Try to post blogs regularly and optimise them with relevant keywords and images. 
• Refer to external resources for added information or to back up information in your blog article. 
• Link to other blogs on your website if relevant to encourage users to stay on your webpage. 
• Maintain your blog as much as possible and try to post as often as you can. 

2. Longform content

The most common – and successful – types of longform content are ‘beginner’s guides’ or ‘ultimate guides’. These are great for establishing authority and promoting your business as a leader in its industry. They also provide a tonne of value for users. Longform content should be informative and expansive – we’re talking anywhere from 3,000+ words. It’s best to divide longform content into chapters, with subheadings and maybe even different links or URLs for each chapter. This makes them more readable and easier for the user to navigate. 

What’s great about longform content and ‘ultimate guides’ is that you’re providing all the information on any one topic. This means that users won’t have to go elsewhere to build their knowledge on a topic, because you have already covered everything in your guide. Making an informative, long piece of content like this and providing it for free on your site is also extremely valuable for users. They may choose to share it on their own webpages or with others. 

One way to publish longform content is chapter by chapter. You can encourage users to stay tuned for the next chapter by leaving their email address, which in turn helps you gather more emails for your newsletter. Whether you choose to do this or not: make sure you break down your longform content into small sections so they’re not intimidating or hard to read. Promote your longform content anywhere that’s relevant – if they’re useful then they’ll quickly build links and attract traffic. 

3. Case studies

A case study should walk users through a scenario, including its context, problem, solution, and results. They should always provide actionable information for users so that they can try to replicate your results for themselves, e.g. How We Increased Conversions by XYZ Using XYZ. Case studies are extremely valuable for users and go a long way in terms of establishing your business as an industry leader and authority. Because a case study will always be unique to your business, they are highly shareable and cannot be replicated by anyone else. You’ll always be providing a unique and original piece of information, using your own data in your own unique situation. 

When writing a case study, try to keep it straightforward. Start by summarising the context/study, explaining the problem or hypothesis, and then guiding the user through your solution, step-by-step. If you use images and screenshots, even better. At the end, summarise your results for the user and explain why they are important. Try to avoid just going through the steps in a case study and reporting results with no explanation as this provides little value for the user at the end. Case studies should always be actionable and almost like a form of storytelling. 

4. Infographics

Less about written content and more about visuals, infographics are a fun way to tell a story, share statistics, or present information to users. They’re a visual representation of data that’s interesting and easily digestible, using charts & other graphics to quickly convey information. Infographics are a great piece of content to use on social media and are very shareable, making them a great way to get backlinks. 

Some tips for making infographics: 

• The quicker information can be presented via an infographic, the better. You don’t want users to sit there trying to decipher what you have to say. 
• If you’re creating multiple infographics, keep the design consistent and simple. Use plenty of white space around your text and images. 
• Don’t just use infographics to share stats and data. You can also use them to visually represent how your product/service works. 

Start creating content

Starting to see all the possibilities that you have for creating content? Once you get the hang of all the different content types, it can become a work of art to choose the right type of content to share a particular message. We’ll always recommend a blog for your website, but from there, it’s your world to explore! 

Have a brainstorm and see which of these four content types you could start using to increase brand visibility and connect with your audience online. And if you’re stuck and need some help – get in touch with our team!