7 Tips for Writing a Great Listicle

Writer:
Robert Jellison
Editor:
Alaina Bradenburger
November 28, 2023
Last updated:
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If your blog feels stale, consider writing some listicles. This popular blog format is an engaging way to break down information into smaller pieces. Because listicles don't hit your readers with a lot of information at once, they're great for luring readers to your blog. This article (which is itself a listicle) covers the basics of the popular article format and how to write a listicle your readers will enjoy. 

What Is a Listicle?

Shockingly enough, a listicle is any piece of digital content that’s formatted as a numbered list.

They are articles that are divided into discrete sections, each with a numbered subheading. “Top (X) lists” are one very common type of listicle, but there are others.

The listicle format was popularized by websites like BuzzFeed but has since been adopted by serious publications as well. Thousands of list-formatted articles are published every month. Listicles have become one of the quintessential types of written digital content.

Listicles are a great form of content for any website. Get the best writers to create listicles for your site through our content writing services.

Why Is the Listicle Format So Popular?

People like listicles because they present information in a way that’s easy to scan and digest.

Provides the Versatility Needed for a Wide Range of Topics

Other blog post formats — such as how-to guides — limit you to those parts of your business people need help learning. Listicles are more versatile, and they’re fun to write. 

You can adapt a listicle to any topic as long as you can figure out how to break it into numbers. A listicle also lets you write multiple articles on the same topic from different angles. 

Say you’re working in finance and want to find a way to make annual percentage rates more digestible or exciting. You might tackle it from a straightforward angle: “Top 10 factors that determine your APR.” Or you could be more cheeky with it: “Why you’re paying too much for your car: Top 10 ways to lower your APR.” 

Leverages the Power of Expectations

Let’s pretend you stumble across an article titled “How To Eat Healthy.” That’s an incredibly broad title, and it doesn’t tell you very much about the article.

That title makes the article sound like it will either be:

  • Long and intimidating: “Eating healthily” is a huge subject that it would take thousands of words to do justice to.
  • Superficial and useless: Since most web articles aren’t 10,000+ words long, it’s easy to get the sense that it probably just summarizes things that are more comprehensively detailed elsewhere — in other words, stuff everybody already knows.
  • These impressions aren’t necessarily accurate. The article probably isn’t trying to address the entire subject of “healthy eating”; there’s something specific the author wants to tell you about it. But the title fails to communicate that.

Your title shouldn’t make your readers feel like they’re about to dive into a huge pile of books.

On the other hand, an article named “7 Tips for Eating Healthy” doesn’t sound as intimidating. You know what you’re getting with the article: seven pieces of concrete advice.

Simplifies Complex Ideas and Processes

Listicles commonly break complex ideas down for readers who want to skim through the information. Think about our example on annual percentage rates. While this topic is an important part of personal finance, most people would rather scroll through cat videos on social media than waste their time thinking about their loan interest rates. 

Listicles are a more engaging way to break this topic down for your target audience. Show them how they can save money on their next car loan, and they might be willing to look away from internet animals for a few minutes. 

Even if you’re an expert in your industry, most of your potential customers aren’t. A good listicle will help you explain the subtleties of a topic without talking down to your audience. Instead, you can use smaller chunks of information to guide them through each idea. 

Provides Information in an Easy-To-Digest Format

It’s difficult to absorb information when it’s presented as one big undifferentiated mass. People don’t work that way; when we have to learn about complex subjects, most of us break them down as much as possible and then tackle each piece one by one.

Ultimately, that’s what a listicle does. It distills the information it’s presenting down into a couple of key points and then elaborates on them. It’s a format that’s more in line with the way people think.

7 Expert Tips to Master This Binge-Able Blog Format

So how do you write a successful listicle?

To start with, pick a fresh and interesting topic. To continue with the example from above, “7 Tips for Eating Healthy” is still a pretty uninspiring title. Volumes have been written on the subject of healthy eating, and the title doesn’t make it clear that the article offers anything new.

On the other hand, an article titled “7 Tips for Eating Healthy While Traveling” or “7 Unexpected Health Benefits of Drinking Oolong Tea” wouldn’t face as much competition.

When you write your article, follow all the usual advice about writing well. Avoid the passive voice, vary your sentence structure, use vivid language, and get rid of unnecessary words. Those are things you should be doing when you write anything, of course.

Are there any other points you should bear in mind when writing a listicle? Read on for a couple of things you might not have considered.

1. Make Sure Your Article Belongs in a List Format

Before you get started, take a minute to think about whether your article makes sense as a listicle. We love listicles — this article probably makes that clear — but they’re not right for everything. Always ask yourself, “Can I break my article down into several discrete points?” Only write it as a listicle if the answer is a firm yes.

Narrative pieces shouldn’t generally be listicles. If you want to tell a story about the time you went pearl diving in Tahiti, it probably shouldn’t be formatted as a list – although it’s possible that as you’re writing it, you’ll discover it would work better as a listicle than a straight-up narrative (“10 Things That Surprised Me When I Went Pearl Diving in Tahiti,” for example).

2. Check That Your Title Matches Your List

Imagine that you’re reading an article called “7 Surprising Benefits of Taking a Gap Year,” and item number four is “Make Sure Not To Bite Off More Than You Can Chew.” You can see what’s wrong with that, right? It’s good advice, but it’s not really a “benefit,” which is what the title promised the article would be about.

That list entry would make perfect sense in an article titled “7 Tips for Taking a Gap Year,” but it’s not appropriate here. It makes it seem like the title and article were written by different people.

Mistakes like this look amateurish, but they’re fairly common. How do they happen? In some cases, it’s because the person who wrote the title actually wasn’t the person who wrote the article. Other times, it’s because the article’s writer was distracted.

Don’t fall into that trap. It’s tempting to take shortcuts when you’re feeling the pressure to produce a lot of content very quickly, but you still need to check your work before you publish it.

If you produce a lot of listicles, it might feel difficult brainstorming unique, enticing titles without being too repetitive. To avoid falling into a rut, try varying your listicles with these different types of headlines.

Be Careful Not to Write Clickbait

Make sure your titles accurately describe your listicle. It’s tempting to tie your listicle to a trending topic or create a sensationalized headline. Just because these articles can be fun doesn’t mean you should take liberties with your title. A misleading title always looks bad, but accurate titles are especially important for listicles because they help you avoid the appearance of clickbait.

Although listicles are popular, they don't have a perfect reputation. There are a lot of listicles out there with titles that mislead the reader, and you don’t want your article to be associated with them, especially if you’re trying to establish yourself as an authority and a source of high-quality content.

It isn’t hard to make sure that your title is accurate. Just pay attention and double-check your article before you publish it.

With that said...

3. Give Your Article a Compelling Title and a Great Hook That Hooks the Reader’s Attention 

A compelling title is so simple yet overlooked that it can deservedly be considered a content marketing hack.

Lists are very shareable. If your article is going to be spread by being shared on people’s Facebook and Twitter feeds, you need to name it something that will grab people’s interest so they click through.

How do you write a good title? Many of the rules are the same as the rules for writing well. Use strong, declarative sentences, and if you have a choice between a longer and shorter word, you should probably go with the shorter one.

Take Advantage of the Curiosity Gap

It helps to not tell the reader everything about your article in your title. Ask a question instead of answering one. Headlines that do this are called “curiosity gap” headlines, and they're proven to make people click more.

“Okay,” you’re saying. “Now you’ve confused me. I thought you just said I shouldn’t write clickbait.”

You shouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean you have to write a boring title.

The word “clickbait” is sometimes thrown around a little too freely. There’s nothing wrong with writing a title that makes people want to read your content. The art of writing attention-grabbing headlines has been around for a lot longer than the term “clickbait,” or devices that can click, for that matter.

Attention-grabbing headlines are nothing new. What bothers people about clickbait titles isn’t that they’re interesting. It’s that often, they overpromise, employ cliches, or are overly vague.

Don’t Overpromise

You’ve almost certainly read titles with phrases like “You Won’t Believe This,” “Number 12 Will SHOCK YOU,” and the infamous “One Weird Trick.” Those phrases probably worked at one point — after all, if they hadn’t drawn in readers, writers wouldn’t have kept using them — but at this point, they’re so ubiquitous that your readers will end up rolling their eyes at them.

Worse, titles like this always end up overpromising. Always ask yourself, will item number 12 really shock your readers? If not, don’t put that in the title.

Make Your Title Useful

There’s a difference between not telling your readers everything about the article before they click it, and giving readers next to no information at all.

This headline from The Washington Post is an example of the curiosity gap done right. It asks a question instead of answering one, playing on your curiosity, but it still tells you exactly what the article will be about in the headline.

Conversely, imagine an article titled, “These 18 Books Will Blow Your Mind.” That title gives you virtually no information about what the article’s contents will be, except that it’s about “books.” What, exactly, is so special about these books? Will they blow your mind because they’re good, bad, or simply unusual? What kind of books are they, even — fiction or nonfiction? Titles like this annoy many readers.

Highlight the Strength of Your Content

Your title is your chance to sell your article. Be a good salesperson, not an unethical one. When you write it, ask yourself, what’s the most exciting way I can describe this article without misrepresenting it? Incorporate your target keywords and be clear about how the article will benefit readers. 

4. Choose Items That Will Surprise Your Readers

One of the great things about the list format is how it pulls the reader forward. With numbered subheadings, there’s a concrete sense of progression as the reader moves through the article. They want to get to the next entry to see what it is.

Listicles are also very scannable. It’s very easy for a reader to skim a listicle when they’re short on time and zero in on the most interesting entries.

Take advantage of that by making sure you have some entries that your reader will not expect.

This isn’t the same as making sure you have high-quality content, which of course you should always do. It’s about having unexpected content.

Let’s consider the Healthy Eating Tips article again. Imagine if the tips were things like, “Drink Plenty of Water,” and “Limit Your Intake of Empty Carbs.” That’s all good stuff, and a well-researched listicle talking about them would have some value – to people looking for info on the benefits of staying hydrated, for example.

But those tips aren’t exactly groundbreaking, are they? (“You mean I shouldn’t eat potato chips with every meal? You don’t say.”)

On the other hand, if one of your list headings is surprising, like “If You Eat Fatty Foods, Eat Them in the Morning,” that’s going to draw in the viewer’s eyes. Your readers will be intrigued — and potentially skeptical. “Huh? There’s no way that matters.” That’s not a bad reaction. That skepticism will get them reading, and once you do that, you’ve won the battle.

The hardest fight in content marketing is to get people looking at your website in the first place.

Once you’ve got them doing that, you can rely on the strength of your content to keep them there. Google will notice, boosting your rankings, and every second readers spend on your page is a chance to convert them into customers. (If you’re not confident in your content, consider hiring some better writers.)

5. Make Your List Scannable

Great writing is important, of course, but don’t neglect your formatting.

Remember, one of the best things about listicles is their scannability. People have short attention spans at the best of times, and a reader's attention span is heavily influenced by the medium of what they’re reading.

Five pages of solid paragraphs, unbroken by any kind of subheading or picture, might be appropriate in a textbook. But in an article on your blog, it’s going to seem very out of place and be hard to read.

Listicles summarize their main points in a sentence or two each (the list items themselves) and then elaborate on them. A reader who’s short on time or not feeling particularly attentive can get maybe 50% of the value of the article by scrolling through it for thirty seconds and reading the list items. If an entry jumps out at them as being particularly interesting, they can zero in on it and spend as much time reading it as they want.

In this article, “25 Skills Every Cook Should Know,” the H2 list entries (paired with eye-catching images) grab the eye. The reader can then read the content if they feel like it.

This is the great advantage of listicles, and you want to make it as easy for your readers to do as possible. That means formatting your listicle intelligently. It goes without saying that your list items need to pop out. They should be formatted as subheadings — preferably H2s. This will make Google just as happy as your readers, as they’re likely to contain the keywords you want to rank for  (which you can identify through keyword research tools).

Keep your paragraphs relatively short. On blogs, nobody likes parsing massive chunks of text. Bold important words or even entire sentences. It helps break up the text and prevent eyestrain and further helps your readers hone in on what they want to read. You’ll notice we do this on this blog, including in this very article. (We do try to take our own advice.)

It’s also a nice idea to strategically insert images into your post. Try to make them at least somewhat relevant to what you’re talking about, which increases your list’s scannability and boosts your SEO. Every now and then, though, it’s fine to insert an image just because you think it’s fun – like, for instance, if you wanted to sneak in a goofy joke about Martin Luther or potato chips. That’s OK, too.

6. Pick the Right Number of Entries

You’ll find a lot of articles online that claim to tell you the optimum number of entries your list should have.

A lot of this advice is conflicting. It’s good to have odd numbers, especially primes — people like them, for some reason — but 10 is also a strong number. Keep your list short and sweet, but remember that 29 is the perfect number.

Obviously you can’t follow all this advice.

It’s not all necessarily bunk. It is backed by a certain amount of data, and some of it just feels “right.” Doesn’t seven feel like a good number for a list?

But ultimately, advice like that should not be a major consideration for you. Write exactly the number of entries that you can provide high-quality, meaningful content for.

If you’re writing an article on “Overlooked Tourist Spots in Spain,” and you’ve come up with 12 of them, then you should write about 12 of them. If you leave one out, you’re giving somebody else a chance to write about it and rank for that keyword instead. On the other hand, if you force a mediocre entry because 13 is a prime number and you read that prime numbers draw in clicks, then you’re compromising the quality of your content. One of your entries will feel dull and forced.

Dull, uninspired content is death to SEO. Every second that your readers spend looking at a boring paragraph makes it more likely that they’ll click the back button and leave your page.

This is a listicle. It’s seven entries long. Why? When we brainstormed, we came up with seven things that we wanted to say. We didn’t pick it because it’s prime; that was a happy coincidence. This approach has worked pretty well for us, and we recommend that you do things the same way.

SEO is important, but it’s possible to overthink it. As the people who actually design the search engine algorithms keep telling us over and over, the most important thing is to have high-quality content. Everything else comes second.

Is There Such a Thing as Too Long?

There’s no industry standard for what makes a listicle too long. If your list has more than 30 entries, you might want to consider breaking it up into two or more articles — but there have been plenty of successful listicles of that length or longer.

Just be careful to match the length of each entry to the length of the list. If your article is “5 Tips for Giving a Great Speech“, each tip should be pretty comprehensive. On the other hand, if it’s “33 Tips,” then spend no more than a paragraph on each one. Potentially spend just a sentence or two. If you want to go into any of them in more depth, write another article, and then link to it. (Internal links make Google happy, too.)

7. Write a Strong Ending

Presumably, you gave your listicle an intro instead of just opening with item number one.

If you didn’t, do that. Nobody likes to be tossed right into the middle of things with no lead-in.

Make sure you give your list a good outro, too. It can be its own list entry, or it can be under its own subheading that’s not part of the list.

You don’t need to end your article the same way you would end an essay for school — ”In conclusion…” The important thing is to provide a sense of closure to the article and make sure your readers aren’t left looking for a page two button. A few sentences will do it.

If you feel like it, you can also end with an image that subtly lets the reader know there’s nothing more to come.

How Compose.ly Can Help You Master List Articles

Whether you’re juggling managing a company or in charge of executing its marketing strategy, you may not have the time to create listicles of your own. That's where Compose.ly comes in! Tap into our network of talented writers who will turn your most successful topics into compelling listicles. 

You can send us some insight into your chosen topic and we will turn it into an engaging listicle to entertain your readers. Our writers are familiar with SEO best practices to get you noticed without having to resort to clickbait. 

Let’s talk about taking the task of creating listicles off your hands.

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