Listicle Roundup SEO – FatRank

If you are not capitalising on listicle roundups in your SEO strategy then you are missing out on a lot of extra key phrases you could be ranking for.

Ranking for keywords like “best SEO agency” but wondering why you are nowhere to be seen for “best SEO agencies”?

It is very simple why this is and it’s called search intent.

The plural “agencies” are telling Google the searcher wants a list of companies and here enters the invention of Listicle Roundup SEO.

What Are Listicles?

Listicles are articles that are written in a list post format.

The most popular listicles is content presented wholly or partly in the form of a top 10 list.

But in the modern-day SEO world where content is king the roundup listicles now are often enhanced with additional information around each item to make them more useful.

So usually the list format is either an ordered list (numbered list) or unordered list (bullet points) that have jump-to links down to the headings on the page to briefly explain why they were added to the top-rated list.

Why Are Listicles So Popular?

Listicles are so popular for the following reasons:

• Easy to Read – There’s a reason why the best SEO content writers use numbered lists in their copy. A specific number helps a reader understand what they’re in for… before they click. And a list post title like: “15 Ways to Improve Your Google Rankings” has a preview built right into it.
• Covers the Whole Topic – Not all list posts are short and sweet. It’s possible to create listicles that put everything someone needs to know about something on a single page. Many SEOs now use listicles for their huge 10k plus pillar articles.
• Easy to Write – From the perspective of content creators, listicles are super easy to write (especially compared to other post formats, like ultimate guides and case studies). All you need to do is list out 10-20 items, fill in a few blanks, and you’re done. And depending on the list, sometimes you’re just curating stuff that’s already out there.
• People are in a hurry – The same way bullet points can help people quickly scan the most important pieces of information, a listicle is easy to scan and consume. Which make them perfect for folks with short attention spans.

What Listicles Work Best?

The best performing listicles are the expanded list format.

The expanded list format is where you deliver what the searcher is looking for in an easy to digest list but create the links on the list to jump down to explaining in more detail why they made your roundup.

You see, most listicles go from item #1 to item #2 to item #3 without a whole lot of detail for each one explained.

But with an Expanded List Post, you add more meat to each tip, strategy or agency on your list.

That way, your reader has the information they need to take action on one of the items right then and there.

Every single tip, agency or brand on your list contains lots of detail underneath each subheading on your list.

That way, there’s no guesswork or extra research required. You can literally have this post open in one tab while you take action in another tab.

Why Listicle Roundups Work Brilliantly?

There are many reasons listicle roundups work so well:

• Reach out to people on the list and because they are featured, many of them happily share the content on social media to all their audiences
• Reach out to people on the list and because they are featured and many of them actually backlink to show they made top 10 feature
• The positive engagement signals from the shares power the webpage up hugely
• The easy to read list format is perfect to rank in the featured snippets
• Other companies reach out wanting to be added which you can charge for or ask them to provide free content to add them on

Gamify Your Lists

You can even “gamify” your list by asking people to vote on their favourite.

We all know engagement signals, dwell time, CTR and conversion on your site are tracked by Google.

So if you can gamify your lists then surely this is a game-changer?

Well, this is where roundupwiz comes into play as a plugin that can create your lists, get people manually adding to the lists with brief reviews why they should be added (free content) and once added they share to their audience to vote for their listing to rank higher.

The sharing and voting on the lists attract great engagement signals towards your webpage that rankbrain uses for ranking higher in Google.

How to Write Roundup Listicles?

Over the years I have manually written roundup listicles by manual keyword research and topic knowledge.

But today I use a great plugin called roundupwiz that does the heavy lifting for me.

The idea here is that you’re teaming up with people that know what they’re talking about. Which gives your post instant credibility.

Now you might be wondering: “why would an influencer want to contribute to my roundup?”.

Exposure. Traffic. And a link to their blog.

What is WP Roundup Wizard?

This WordPress plugin lets you deploy different list templates to your blog and allows users to add and vote on items in the list.

That means beautiful user-generated lists that create shares and engagement automatically.

What is amazing about this plugin:

• It gets free user-generated content for people wanting to be listed on your listicle
• If you add them they share your listicle to their audience
• Some embed the award logo on their site so you receive free backlinks to this listicle
• Drives engagement signals like traffic, social and boosts rankbrain because of this

Check out my full review on WP Roundup Wizard to see the advantages of using this plugin.

Summary

Creating list posts have always been a strategy used on our affiliate sites because they grab the featured snippets for the plural search intent terms.

But hats off to Brian Dean for this listicle article where I have taken a couple of images and information about the expanded list post format.

And also to Ajay Paghdal for his gamifying roundupwiz wordpress plugin that allows you to create lists easily and drive engagement through these lists as other companies mentioned start to share and vote on your website.