How to Write A Checklist-Style Blog Post

How to Write A Checklist-Style Blog Post

This entry is part 4 of 6 in the series Guide to Writing Popular Article/Blog Posts

You’ve probably seen checklist blog posts before. They are often the most popular posts on websites like and they’re pretty easy to write once you know what you need to cover. If you want to create your own checklist blog post but aren’t sure how, this is the article for you!

We’ll go over everything from research needed to formatting tips – all of which will help keep readers engaged throughout your post.

What Is A Checklist-Style Blog Post?

A checklist-style blog post is similar to a how-to blog post but takes a more step by step approach. How-to articles can include instructions in a 1-2-3 format but other times, they might explore different ways to do something. With a checklist, you could almost print the blog post and tick the items off as you go.

Checklist-style blog posts are popular in niches such as fashion, food and beauty, but the possibilities are endless. They are also popular on sites like Buzzfeed where they can be used to complete a certain look or recipe.

The checklist-style blog post is the ultimate guide for how to do something – with all of the steps laid out in an easy-to-follow format.

What Should Be Include?

This type of blog obviously needs to have a checklist or step by step process in it. But you do want to add some context.

You might want to start with why you would do the thing you are teaching. For example, if you were teaching someone how to embed a YouTube video to their blog, you might start by explaining that this is better for site speed than having the video play in the post.

You might also want to give a bit of information about any tools, equipment, supplies or software required. This is especially important if the topic is something that isn’t very common.

For example, in a jewellery tutorial, most people will know what flat nose pliers are but might not know what a crimping tool is. Plus this is a good chance to get those affiliate links in for the products to help people find them easily.

How To Format Your Post

Here is a list of things to consider when formatting your checklist-style blog post:

  • All items should be lined up neatly, regardless if they are labelled or not
  • Tasks with labels should have an asterisk (*) next to them and those without should still have a bullet point (or dash (-)) so that readers can easily identify what is a priority when they are following the process
  • As with all blog posts, an introduction to the topic should be included
  • All items in the checklist need to be numbered so that people can follow them easily or you can embed empty boxes for readers to check off.
  • If you have more than five tasks, consider breaking up your list into multiple checklists within one blog post or splitting off a second blog post entirely.

What SEO Factors Do You Need To Consider?

Checklist-style blog posts are similar to other types of post when it comes to good basic on-page SEO. So remember to use your keyword and other related keywords in the post’s headline, sub-headlines, title tags, meta descriptions etc.

But checklist blog posts also require a detailed table of contents (TOC) which is an outline with numbered headings. This will help you create links to each section which boosts SEO because people can click on those links from search results and increase the chance of getting traffic.

Create Useful Resources

The purpose of the checklist post is always to create a useful resource. Whether it is a simple five-step checklist or a multi-level list with various sub-tasks to complete, the aim is always to make it easy for the reader to follow . That will also make it more likely to rank on SERPs as well.

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