10 reasons your list post sucks
Does your article lack an intro and a conclusion? Are you omitting visuals? Is it not easily scanned or tweeted? These are just some of the flaws that are causing readers to flee.
They are so popular there are blogs devoted to list posts exclusively.
Writing a list post doesn’t ensure that you’ll generate social shares or traffic. Why? Because chances are good your list post sucks.
How do you write a great one? Avoid the following 10 reasons for failed list posts:
1. You’re not using the right number of items.
How many items should you have in your list post? The number is 10.
Ok Dork and Buzzsumo analyzed 100 million articles. They found the most popular posts featured the following number of items: 10, 23, 16, and 24 (in this order).
The difference in popularity is significant: List posts containing 10 items got four times more shares than the runner-up-posts with 23 items.
2. Your list post can’t be scanned easily.
The purpose of a list post is for someone to digest the information quickly. If your post can’t be scanned easily, you’re doing something wrong.
Become a Ragan Insider member to read this article and all other archived content.
Sign up today
Already a member? Log in here.
Learn more about Ragan Insider.
