Presenting blog articles in the form of lists, whether it be “Step-by-Step…”, “Ten ways to…” or simply bulleted points is a popular blog writing convention, one that we were sure would fade out gradually, yet it remains the preferred article form for online readers, as it turns out. We know this because lists undeniably pull more traffic than story form articles.

“The mega list is often guaranteed to produce a ton of traffic”.

[Jeff Bullas - 10 Awesome Headlines that Drive Traffic and Attract Readers]

Click on any of the categories on Jeff Bullas’s blog and you will see that seven out of ten articles are in a list form. Go to THIS PAGE, for instance. This is notable since Jeff Bullas is the digital blog marketing expert.

“I have a friend who works at a very big national publication and is a genius at making lists for the web. Her lists go viral and generate millions (I mean literally millions) of pageviews. ...People love lists. Consequently, lists drive traffic, which is why website editors demand them, which is why you see so many of them on the internet.”

[Dan Lyons - It's All in Your Head: 9 Reasons You Can't Resist a List]

Why should this be the case though? Nicholas Carr, in his book The Shallows, has argued that the medium of the Internet is dramatically affecting the way in which we consume content. In referring to a conversation that he has had with Scott Karp, he writes:

“…[R]eading lots of short, linked snippets online is a more efficient way to expand [your] mind than reading “250-page books.”

[Nicholas Carr - The Shallows]

When I asked Karl Hodge, technology journalist and head digital journalism lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University, how people read online his simple answer was –“They don’t.”…It would appear that although many of us love getting lost in the pages of the good book, the same can’t be said for online content.

[Louise Fletcher - Understanding Reader Behaviour]

We are less concerned with details, and more concerned with being presented with actionable steps. We don’t want to waste our cognitive energies on analysing theories; we want to be told what to do, and how to do it. The convention of list articles is popular as it speaks to a very specific user need, a need that is unique to the culture of contemporary blog browsers.

Sound Idea Digital is a full service digital marketing agency. For more information contact 012 664 4227 or email to info@soundidea.co.za

Carla van Straten is a writer for Sound Idea Digital | Carla@soundidea.co.za|@SoundIdeaLMS| Sound Idea Digital l www.soundidea.co.za

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