10 Blog Post Formulas That Help You Create More Articles In Less Time
The great writer Ernest Hemingway once said: "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
While writing may not be as gruesome as what Hemingway describes, I am certain we can all understand what he means.
When you're inspired, content creation is a piece of cake. The words flow out like the Mississippi River, and you feel like a champion.
But when you’re not inspired, content creation sucks. You feel like you’re Sisyphus, having to push that boulder up that impossible hill.
And you can’t stop. Your boss demands it. Your clients demand it. Google demands it.
You have to publish, publish, publish - all for that sweet Google juice.
But… What if there was a way for you to create articles faster? What if you could have proven templates that you could simply fill in and get a blog post done?
Guess what?
There IS such a thing.
Because you see - writing content is like cooking. While you can certainly create original recipes from scratch, sometimes all you have to do is to grab a proven recipe, follow the ingredients and instructions, and just cook.
And the best part - there are 10 such recipes out there for you to use and replicate.
Ready?
Keep reading.
The How-To Post
Is there really an introduction needed for the How-To post? The How To post is probably the most common format seen out there in the interwebz. It is used everywhere - from blog content to videos, from advertising to books.
Most people love How-Tos. And why not? Everyone loves a good post that can teach them how to do something.
Here’s the quick-and-easy formula on how to write a How-To blog post:
1. Choose a Topic
What is your audience interested in? What would they love to learn how to do, but don’t know how? What would they want to learn, but are unfamiliar with it?
Select a topic, and you’re ready to move on.
2. Outline the Steps Required
How-To posts are typically organized in a step-by-step fashion. Begin outlining all the steps required in order for a specific result to happen.
Ideally, you should already know how to get the result your audience wants, and outlining is merely a reorganization of your memory. If you don’t know how, then don’t worry. Give a quick search on Google to discover the steps required.
3. Write Your Headline
On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar. - David Ogilvy
Your headline is the most important part of the post. Without a good, catchy headline, people will skip past your post. Here are a few headline templates you can choose from:
How To [Achieve A Desired Outcome]
How To [Desired Outcome] Without [Unpleasant Action]
How To [Achieve Desired Outcome] Like [Celebrity]
A Tutorial To [Achieve Desired Outcome]
[Number] Steps To [Achieve Desired Outcome]
[Keyword]: How To [Supporting Keywords]
4. Write Your Intro
Give a brief introduction of the problem most people from your audience face, and how they can finally do it today.
5. Fill In the Steps
Once you’re done introducing the post, jump straight into the steps required. Give them all the steps required (like what I’m doing here) to achieve the end result they want.
6. Write Your Conclusion
End your post with a motivational call-to-action; inspire them to begin taking action on the action steps you’ve provided.
Examples:
The List Post
Ahh, the list post. One of the most shared content types on the Internet, the list post is both hated and loved at the same time.
However, you don’t always have to create a clickbaity listicle. That’s for BuzzFeed. There is a way to create highly shareable, and highly loved list posts.
How?
Give each item on the list more “meat”. Instead of merely listing down all the points, give it an overview and describe why you included it in the list.
Here’s the recipe on how to do it:
1. Choose a Topic
Similar to the How-To post, make sure the topic you’re choosing is something that is highly desired by your audience. And for this particular format, make sure the topic you’ve chosen can allow you to generate at least 10 – 15 tips.
2. List Out All the Tips
Before even writing, you should list out every single tip possible. You can:
Brain-dump everything you know about that topic on a Google Sheet.
Research from other blogs. Do a Google search for “your topic” + “tips” to surface other list posts and guides that you can borrow tips from.
Pretend that a customer or a client is asking you questions about that topic. What tips or strategies would you give that would change his or her life?
3. Shorten the List
Now that you have a huge list of all the tips you know, it’s time to cut it. Don’t give them 100 tips on how to do something, there’s a surefire way to make sure your audience does nothing.
Instead, choose 10 – 15 of your best (and actionable) tips, and explain them clearly.
4. Write Your Headline
You are now ready to write your article. Give it a good headline to entice readers to read. Here are a few headline templates you can consider:
XX Things You Didn’t Know About [Person/Thing]
XX Ways To [Do Something]
XX Tips For [Objective]
XX [Adjective] Facts [Person/Audience] Should Know
XX [Blank] That Will Change Your Life
5. Write Your Intro
Do a quick introduction of the problem you’re trying to solve.
6. Fill In the Tips
Include the 10 – 15 of your best tips here. Don’t just list out the tips and leave it as it is. Add some meat!
Write an overview for each tip to give it some context, and write a short step-by-step guide on how to execute it. Make it actionable.
7. Write Your Conclusion
Conclude your post by channeling your inner Coach Wooden. Tell them what they should do next. Tell them how they should be taking action.
You want them to walk away, apply one of your tips, and change their lives.
Examples:
The Egobait Post
Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language - Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnegie is right. Everyone loves to see their names featured somewhere. Everyone loves their ego stroked.
Take advantage of that by creating an egobait post. This is a post that is specifically created to attract the attention of a person or a group of people.
And this is the simple formula on how you can do it:
1. Choose Your Topic
Choose a topic that an influencer would be proud to be part of.
Pro-Tip: Make sure the topic is something more specific, for example, instead of “best fitness blogs”, you can do one on “best CrossFit blogs.”
2. Find Your Influencers
With the topic at hand, it is now time to search for people who would fit in that category. You can:
Do a quick Google search for top [topic] blogs or top [topic] experts.
Use AllTop.com - a site that lists down all the most popular blogs in a range of topics. Use AllTop to surface these experts’ blogs.
Use other egobait posts.
Watch out for virtual summits, or podcasts. They usually contain some of the best experts on particular topics.
3. Organize Your List
This depends entirely on how many experts you want to feature. Whittle down the list to the number you desire. Keep them relevant to the topic you’re discussing.
4. Create Your Headline
Here are some templates you can use:
XX Of The Best [Topic] Blogs You Should Read
Top XX [Topic] Blogs
The Best [Topic] Blogs You Need To Follow In [Year]
XX [Topic] Experts You Should Follow
11 [Topic] Experts Whose Insight Will Change Your Life
5. Write Your Intro
For your introduction, you can write about how many amazing experts there are out there on that topic, and why you chose these particular few experts.
6. Order Your List
Whilst I discourage ranking them in hierarchal order, try putting some of the more authoritative blogs at the top to make your list look legit.
7. Create the Listing
Don’t sweat this too much. Follow the proven template on how this is done. Here are the 4 important elements for your egobait post:
Their name or website name
Their picture
A short, descriptive bio
A link back to their site or social media profiles
8. Write Your Conclusion
Keep your conclusion simple. Tell your audience to bookmark or follow them.
Examples:
The Expert Roundup
Getting influencers involved in your content is a surefire way of getting them to share your content. One good way of doing this is to create an expert roundup. An expert roundup is a blog post that features contributions by multiple experts.
Here’s the formula for doing it:
1. Choose Your Topic
When choosing your topic, make sure it is something that is relevant to your audience, and interesting to the experts.
2. Find Your Experts
With your topic at hand, search for experts to reach out to. You can uncover them by using search terms like “top [topic] blog”, “interview with” + keyword, “keyword” + “guest post by”.
3. Craft Your Question
With your list of experts, it’s time to craft a good question that the experts would want to answer. As experts are mostly busy people, make sure it is easy for them to answer. A good rule of thumb is: “can their answer fit into a tweet?”
4. Email Them
Reach out and ask them the question.
5. Wait For Them to Get Back to You
Since they are busy, they will take some time to get back to you. Wait for a week or so, then follow up with them.
Pro-Tip: Set your own internal deadline for publishing this post. You don’t want to end up delaying (or worse, not publishing) just because you decided to wait for everyone to reply you.
6. Create Your Headline
Here are some templates you can choose from:
How XX Top Influencers [Desired Result] in [Timeframe]
XX [Topic] Experts Reveal [Tip]
XX Experts Discuss [Topic]
7. Write Your Intro
Introduce the post by talking about the problem, why you reached out to these experts and what question(s) you asked them.
8. Include Their Answers
Add their answers into the post. Include:
Their name
Their website (with a linkback)
Their picture
Their answers
9. Write Your Conclusion
Conclude your post by thanking all the experts that participated, and tell your audience what to do next with these expert information.
Examples:
The Curated Blog Post
Instead of explaining everything from scratch, give your audience all the best resources for learning how to do something. Give them every single resource that can help them solve their problems.
Here’s the formula:
1. Choose Your Topic
What do your audience need help with? What problems are they facing? Which topic in your niche has too many poor resources out there that needs sorting?
2. Collect Your Resources
With your topic, search for all the good resources out there. However, don’t only use Google. Your goal is to be as comprehensive as possible. Use these other search areas:
YouTube/ Vimeo/ Dailymotion
TED
Pinterest
AllTop
SlideShare
Amazon
GoodReads
3. Trim Your Resource List
Not everything you’ve found is good, so make sure to trim your list and only include the best. Give your list a quick glance, and remove anything that is not up-to-standard, outdated or copycat.
4. Create Your Headline
Here are some headline templates you can consider using:
XX [Topic] Resources That’ll Take You From [Point A] to [Point B]
X Resources to [Do Something]
X [Type] Resources That Will [Achieve Goal]
X Resources for [Target Group]
5. Write Your Intro
Tell them what problem you’re solving and what delectables you’re giving them.
6. Showcase Your List
Include all of the resources you’ve found in Step 3. Make it even better by organizing it in categories, and giving it a short one-liner description.
7. Write Your Conclusion
Giving them a huge list of resources can be overwhelming. Give them a tip or two on how to tackle the list.
Examples:
The “Hub” Post
A more advanced version of the curator post, the “Hub” post is organized neatly into different chapters that systematically guides the reader to the end result he or she wants.
Here’s the formula:
1. Choose Your Topic
What does your audience need help with? Where is he or she stuck, and needs an illuminating guide to help them?
Pro-Tip: Beware of being too specific. Choose a topic that you can break down into at least 7 -10 chapters.
2. Break Down Your Topic
With your chosen topic, break it down into 7-10 subtopics. These subtopics will end up being your “chapters”.
Imagine you’re writing a book to explain a concept. What would the table of contents be?
3. Collect Your Links
Follow the process in “Curated Blog Post” and search for good, relevant content. Make sure those links can fit under your subtopics.
4. Create Your Headline
For a “Hub” post, you can leave your headline as the keyword you want to rank.
5. Write Your Intro
Introduce the topic and some common challenges people face.
6. Create Your Table of Contents
Let the audience know what you’re going to cover. Let them skip to the different chapters they are interested in.
7. Create Each Chapter
Write a brief overview for each chapter, then add the links they need to read to become world-class in that subtopic.
8. Write Your Conclusion
End off your “hub” post by giving them “further reading.” Give them the opportunity to explore more if they are interested.
Examples:
The Ultimate Guide
Ultimate Guides are long (3,000 words or more) posts that aim to be the only resources a reader needs to learn about a topic.
It is not easy to write; however, with the formula below, you too can do it.
Formula:
1. Choose Your Topic
Choose a topic that is broad enough to sustain a 3,000-word post. Ideally, it should be a topic where complete, detailed information is difficult to find in one place.
2. Do the Research
Your ultimate guide needs to be comprehensive and epic in scale. Meaning, you must cover everything the audience wants to know about that topic. You should aim to leave nothing out.
To do that, you need to look beyond merely Googling. You should check out:
Books
Podcasts
YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion
Online communities – Quora, Reddit, Facebook Groups, etc.
Udemy, Khan Academy, Coursera, Udacity, etc.
Ask experts
3. Outline Your Ultimate Guide
Because you’re going to be dealing with so much information, create an outline on what you expect to tackle. If you’re writing a step-by-step Ultimate Guide, break the topic down into the different steps first. If you’re writing a comprehensive, “book-like” Ultimate Guide, break down the topic into the different subtopics.
4. Create Your Headline
Here are a few templates you can take inspiration from:
Ultimate Guide to [Activity]
The Ultimate Guide To [Achieving Goal]
The Definitive Guide to [Activity/Achieving Goal]
5. Write Your Intro
Because the post is going to be so epic, let them begin reading it right away. Tell them what they should expect after they are finished with your post.
6. Fill In Your Chapters
It’s time to write. Take your outlined chapters, and begin filling in the meat. There’s no shortcut here, so shut off all distractions and churn out the words.
7. Write Your Conclusion
Wrap up your epic post with a bang. Tell them what you want them to do. Inspire them to take their first step. Tell them that change is awaiting them, if they are willing to put in the work.
Examples:
The Celebrity Revealed Post
The “Celebrity Revealed” post is a post that “divulges” something about somebody famous in your field. You can “reveal” something they do, or analyze/reverse-engineer some of their actions.
The best part?
You don’t even need to know the celebrity personally. You can always use quotes, interviews, or whatever they’ve written as your research material.
Here’s the formula:
1. Choose the Celebrity
Decide on who you want to talk about. Ideally, the person you’re “revealing” is someone that is recognizable in your niche, or someone that is globally recognizable.
2. Decide On an Angle
What are you going to reveal about the celebrity? His background? How she does her makeup? How they travel? How they built their business?
Whatever it is, you should have an angle in mind that you want to “expose”.
3. Do The Research
Begin researching how the particular celebrity does his or her thing. Look out for books they’ve written, interviews they’ve given, quotes they’ve made, and so on. You can also reverse engineer their process.
If your influencer is approachable, reach out to him and her and ask them about their process.
4. Create Your Headline
Here are a few templates you can steal from:
How To [Achieve Desired Outcome] Like Celebrity
How To [Achieve Desired Outcome] Using The [Celebrity] Formula
The [Celebrity] Formula: How To [Achieve Something]
5. Write Your Intro
Give a brief description of the celebrity, why you decided on him/her and what you’re trying to reveal.
6. Fill In The Gaps
Now, take whatever you’re discovered, and tell your audience. What did you find? What was useful? How did he or she do it?
7. Write Your Conclusion
End off your post by telling them to take action on the tip you’ve just found.
Examples:
The Case Study
How do you show off that you’ve helped someone achieve something… without sounding hype-y, spammy or just pure bragging?
Easy. Write a case study.
With a case study, you can tell the story of how someone achieved success with your help… without overtly bragging.
Here’s the formula on how you can write a case study:
1. Find Someone You’ve Helped Or Used Your Product
To write a successful case study, you have to tell a truthful story. To do that, find someone you’ve helped.
2. Map Out Their Journey
How did the person get from Point A to Point B? Where was he or she at Point A? How did he or she get to Point B?
Identify all the steps the person took. Grill them on the details. Extract every single thing they did.
3. Create Your Headline
It’s time to create your headline. Here are a few templates you can use:
Case Study: How To [Achieve Result]
Case Study: How to [Desired Result] By [Number/Percentage] In Just [Time]
How I Achieved Desired Results With Numbers – [Supporting Details]
4. Write Your Intro
In your introduction, introduce your “hero”. Who is the person? What problem did he or she have before receiving your help? Why was it even more challenging than normal? Why did he or she approach you?
5. Outline Their Results
What results did they achieve? Give a quick overview of their end results, and why the audience should care.
6. List Down Their Steps Taken
List down all the steps your “hero” took. Go into detail. What did he / she do in each step to bring her that result?
You want to make your case study replicable by anyone who reads it.
7. Write Your Conclusion
Summarize the results your “hero” got. Motivate your readers to do the same thing as your “hero”.
Examples:
The FAQ Post
Considering the popularity of Quora, surveys and Instagram polls, one thing’s for sure – FAQ posts are still effective. (GaryVee also blew up with his famous #AskGaryVee.)
All you have to do is answer commonly asked questions by your audience.
Formula:
1. Discover Frequently Asked Questions
Where can you find these questions? Easy. You can:
Check your inbox
Use community-driven sites like Reddit, Quora, Facebook Groups, etc.
Use search tools like AnswerThePublic
2. Find Out The Answer To This Question
Ideally, as an expert, you should already know the answer. If you don’t, do your research!
3. Create Your Headline
The FAQ post is easy – simply use the question as the headline.
4. Write Your Answer
Go straight into your answer. Further elaborate when necessary.
Examples:
Never Create A Blog Post From Scratch Again
How’s that?
I’ve just given you a list of 10 blog post formulas that you can simply follow like a checklist, and finish your blog posts in record time.
There’s no need to be original all the time. With these 10 recipes in hand, you can create content fast – or even hand it off to someone to help you with your content creation.
With this, you no longer have to worry about content creation ever again.
Note: The opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of Caphyon, its staff, or its partners.
Article by
Si Quan Ong
Ong Si Quan is the Content Marketing Manager at CandyBar, a digital loyalty card app. Increasing referral traffic is his game, and he specializes in building, growing and scaling social channels to drive traffic. In his spare time, he enjoys breakdancing.
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