When creating a blog, it’s important to choose the right type of blog. The type of blog shows the blog’s purpose and how it goes about reaching its goals. This helps you determine the right strategy to reach those goals. To help you choose the best type of blog for your needs, in this article, we’ll look at 12 types of blogs and when they’re most successful. As we go through them, you’ll notice that there is some crossover on some of these blog-types, and a blog can be a combination of them. To be successful, it’s best to focus on one type.
9. The Counter-Culture Blog
This blog uses a marketing method that is divisive in its approach to content. Using the concept that all attention is good attention, it attempts to stand out from the crowd by being as polarizing as possible to the popular view. It’s difficult to get right. If not done well it can eventually be polarizing to those it attracts. Titles can seem more like clickbait. The key is not to be rude, but make bold statements against popular views.
It works best for services and affiliate blogs. It’s the most successful when it gets the balance right- attracting the right audience and keeping them. The counter-culture thought has to be more than the headline- carrying throughout the content itself. It will have a smaller audience, so it needs to turn that smaller audience into faithful followers. The blogger will need to be exceptionally knowledgeable in the topic.
10. Guest Blogs
The content for these blogs written by guest writers who are typically experts in the field. This is different from hiring writers. This is bringing in guest bloggers that already have a following of their own in order to grow the audience.
This leaves the blog owner free to manage and promote the blog while providing content that might even be beyond the blog owner’s expertise. The blog owner will sometimes write some of the content as well, but they’re not the primary authors.
This is successful when you get bloggers that can bring their audience to your blog. They will also help promote the content so the articles can have a larger reach than those written by the blog owner. The blog will need a good following in order to bring in guest bloggers that have a large audience. If you get good enough guest bloggers, you’ll have a variety of content and voices which can draw a larger audience.
11. Case Study Blogs
The case study blog (also, experimental or test blog) tries things out to see what works. They try different tools, techniques, strategies, etc., and report the results to the audience in order to provide insights into their fields. This essentially creates step-by-step guides that the audience can follow for success.
It’s successful when it has enough followers to make a strong case study that can lead into a call to action. Bloggers need to share what works, what doesn’t work, and why. This means the tests have to be relevant to the audience they’re trying to attract.
12. Podcast
The content for this blog includes the embedded podcast (usually audio or video or both, from whatever platform it’s supplied from) and includes a description, summary, or a transcript of the podcast, and links for the call to action. The posts are episodic. The podcast usually takes the form of a chat, webinars, interviews, training, etc.
It’s successful by having a large following that clicks through the call to action. It can be a course, book, software, service, downloads, etc.
Ending Thoughts
That’s our look at 12 types of blogs and when they’re most successful. Even though there will be some overlap, a blog should primarily focus on one type of post. This helps readers know what to expect and helps the blogger focus on their specialized content and meet the blog’s goals.
Even though some of these blog types are extremely different, they all have one thing in common: in order for any blog to survive it needs high-quality content that’s published often. High-value content keeps readers coming back and gives them a reason to share.
