3 Types of Sticky Content Bloggers Should Be Using
While many bloggers find success by targeting timely news stories and quickly churning out posts that have a shelf life of just 24 or 48 hours, this isn’t a strategy most bloggers are able to find success with. Instead, a better long-term strategy is to produce “sticky content” that keeps readers coming back for more.
What is Sticky Content?
The term “sticky content” is used so much in blogging circles that we often lose sight of what it is. While not always known for providing the most reliable definitions, Wikipedia does an exceptional job in this case. This is their definition: “Sticky content refers to content published on a website, which has the purpose of getting a user to return to that particular website or hold their attention and get them to spend longer periods of time at that site.”
Another common term is “evergreen content.” But regardless of whichever terminology you use, the point of sticky content is to generate lasting value for your blog in the form of quality content that continues to attract traffic and backlinks.
Three Types of Sticky Content That Work in 2016
The good news is that there are many different types of sticky content. Some bloggers use them all, while others focus on just one or two formats.
Here’s a brief breakdown and a few examples of the most common ones:
Regularly Updated Posts
Since the point of sticky content is to keep visitors coming back for more, regularly updated posts are a favorite among bloggers. These posts come in a variety of formats, but this release calendar from KicksUSA is a strong example. Notice how it serves as a comprehensive resource for past, current, and future shoe releases. When a customer wants to know when the next Air Jordan is coming out, all they have to do is bookmark the page and return. This leads to increased traffic numbers and a lot of backlinks from other sites in the industry.
How-To Guides
If you study search engine trends, you’ll notice that “how-to” searches are among the most common queries on Google. People frequently search for solutions to issues and want simple, reliable guides. You can take advantage of this by creating how-to guides for common problems your readers face.
Here’s a great example from Burpee. The guide is simply titled How to Grow a Flower Garden and gives readers information on all of the essentials of planning, planting, nurturing, pruning, etc. And since the information provided in this guide is timeless, it’ll continue to generate traffic year after year.
Case Studies
Part of developing high-returning sticky content is getting other bloggers, websites, and industry experts to share and backlink to your content. And while there are plenty of ways to encourage linking, one of the best is to offer unique and relevant statistics or data points. This is commonly done by conducting research and publishing case studies.
Case studies – such as these from Healthy Spaces – do well because they put an authoritative spin on a topic that isn’t discussed in detail elsewhere on the internet. Thus, when someone wants to reference a reliable source on foundation repair, they end up pointing a backlink to Healthy Spaces.
Make Sticky Content Work for You
Every blogger needs to diversify their content strategy. While there’s a time and place for quick news blasts, there’s so much more value to be generated from sticky evergreen pieces that attract readers for months and years to come.
Identify a couple of formats that you believe your audience will respond to and work on developing one or two of these posts per month.