Are you using the best blog types for attracting intelligent readers?
The Internet is a wild, wild world. It’s massively populated and filled with all varieties of people.
Who is it you seek? What kinds of audiences do you want to build with your content?
Conventional wisdom would dictate that, if you’re a business operating online, you’ll want to attract customers. Yeah? Additional deeper wisdom dictates that you’ll want an audience that’s real, that’s engaged, and enjoys what you have to offer. These people will visit your website consistently, comment on your articles, share your social messages, and probably even buy something from you (assuming you have great things to offer).
This is the depiction of an intelligent audience because they acquire your information and apply their knowledge and skills to participate with you.
Of course, it takes intelligible content to build intelligent audiences. Today I’ll share nine blog types you can use to attract an intelligent audience yourself.
9 Blog Types Intelligent Audiences Cannot Ignore
1. Write about intelligent subjects and be direct about it
I wanted to start this list off with a no-brainer. Write about intelligent subjects. Of course, it’s even better when you can write on intelligent subjects while focusing on SEO as well. Do some keyword research to find intelligent subjects that don’t have a ton of competing articles already. This can equate to more direct traffic from intelligent audiences. It’ll likely be only a small amount of traffic, but it’ll be well qualified if it’s on a topic only audience members well-versed on the subject would know.
2. Reviews
Reviews of books, websites, or other forms of information are good blog types to consider because they show your willingness to share and promote the work of others. It shows you recognize the contributions of contemporaries in your field. It shows you aren’t an egomaniac who only wants to speak and be listened to. You’re open to hearing and learning. That’s a very intelligent way of living.
Side note: Reviews also provide great social promotion opportunities.
3. Well-researched blogs with multiple sources
To continue upon the above tip, blog types with at least three different sources (with links) allows you to show your audience that you believe in research. You don’t just share your own opinions, and you’ve spent time seeking, reading, and considering other information you’ve found.
Mustafa Khundmiri shares a similar concept in an article entitled 5 Scientifically-Backed Tips to Build Trust With Your Blog Readers, and says, “When you create smart, evergreen content, you automatically build an audience made up of intelligent people. Well-written and well-researched content makes it easy for you to build trust and spread the word out about your blog through your readers.”
This article also mentions an Oxford study on intelligence. From the University of Oxford, lead author Noah Carl in the Department of Sociology states, “Intelligence is shown to be linked with trusting others, even after taking into account factors like marital status, education and income. This finding supports what other researchers have argued, namely that being a good judge of character is a distinct part of human intelligence which evolved through natural selection.”
He continues to say that other interpretations could be made and that more research should be made, but the research is certainly interesting.
4. Statistics
There are many scientifically-minded people among us. This intelligent audience likes it when numbers are used and data accurately portrays a scenario. Infographics and graphs are very popular with audiences as well, showing data that’s more easily consumed by the reader.
5. Appeal to emotions (EQ)
People often forget about emotional intelligence, but you don’t have to. Show some passion within your articles and paint pictures with your words.
Author C. S. Lakin shares some good advice on eliciting emotional responses in her article How to Create a Strong Emotional Response in Your Readers. She says, “First, you have to keep in mind that emotions are just energy in motion. They have the ability move from you and transfer to the words on the page, then come alive in your readers.”
If you can appeal to your readers’ emotions, they will keep coming back for me.
6. Speak your truth
Intelligent people don’t fall into line, always wavering to the views and beliefs of others. They’ve spent time learning and exploring, and they have beliefs and opinions that are often based on these experiences. Connections can be made when you spread the waters of your mind, especially when you do it with conviction, passion, a good story and something tangible to share.
7. Well-written and edited material
Have you ever read poorly written content? How did it make you feel about the author?
Every time I find spelling errors, run-on sentences, a lack of direction with the article, or boring content, I move on pretty quickly. Intelligent readers like intelligible content. Spell things accurately and always have an editor if you want people to take you seriously.
8. How-tos
Intelligent people like to do things. They utilize their minds, and often their bodies, too. They’re aren’t just consumers, they are contributors.
If you can teach intelligent audiences how to do more things, they’ll love you, and have even more reason to visit your website more in the future.
9. Consider your sources
I mentioned citing sources above. Be discerning with the sites you utilize. You don’t want to fall into a pit of citing bad sources because it can ruin your credibility.
Side note: In the world of search engine optimization, non-profit organizations (.org) and government websites (.gov) are considered as highly-regarded websites to cite. Providers of high-quality content fall a little below these.
Blog types for Intelligent audiences
Try writing content with these blog types in mind and you’ll start developing a stronger, more intelligent audience.
Do you have additional suggestions for developing an intelligent audience? Share your thoughts with us.
