The two biggest reasons that people abandon blogs (or don’t start them at all) are that either they can’t think of anything to write about or they feel like nobody is reading what they’re writing. Both of these problems can be solved by understanding what kinds of blog posts typically get shared by readers and attract new ones.

This is by no means a list of the only kind of blog posts that are worth writing, but here’s five post suggestions that might help you get over writer’s block and/or get a little more attention for your blog.

1. Lists

Oh, the irony of the first item in a list being mention of writing lists. Anyway, writing lists has in a lot of ways become the bread and butter of comedy blogging these days. Even though it seems like the web’s been flooded with them, they still seem to attract a decent amount of traffic. I think people like them because they’re easy to skim even if you don’t feel like actually reading the whole thing and also because they inherently convey a point of view – an opinion that readers can either agree or disagree with.

Cracked has basically built an empire on Top 10 lists, but you can also find them at just about every popular comedy blog on the Internet. Also, keep in mind that your list posts don’t have to just be written – they can be a collection of videos, or photos, or anything else you can think of.

2. True Stories

Here’s one that I think most comedians could do really well with, but don’t try to implement nearly enough. People love reading about crazy true stories and most comedians have more than a few of those to draw from. You may think that writing some crazy fictional blog post will be better than telling actual stories from your life, but you’re wrong. Real is always better than fake, because people can relate and it’s just more interesting.

3. Controversial Opinions

If you’re a comedian, you’ve probably got a strong point of view and a blog post is a great place to get across that point of view. Controversial opinions tend to get traffic because people who agree with you will want to share your post as a way of expressing their agreement, and people who disagree with you may even share your post because they’ll want to tell people what an idiot you are. Either way, your content is getting passed around and that’s exactly what you want to happen. You know how they say there’s no such thing as bad press? Well, there’s no such thing as bad content sharing either.

4. How-To Posts

There’s tons of how-to blog posts floating around the web and that’s because they usually get traffic. People are always searching for advice about how to do something and if you can provide that advice in a blog post, the chances are that it will get read. Most funny people don’t bother doing How-To Posts, but I think it’s actually a missed opportunity. Most how-to posts are pretty boring reads and I think somebody could create a funny how-to blog that would probably do really well because it could be both informative and entertaining.

5. Link Posts

There’s a basic rule of the Internet: if you want another blogger or website to know that you exist then post a link to their content on your site. Just like you, every blogger religiously checks their analytics and looks to see who is linking to their site. As a result, if you start creating posts that are packed with links to content on other sites that you like, the chances are that those sites will see you have linked to them and may return the favor. If you’ve ever wondered why just about every popular comedy blog includes regular link posts, this is reason.

Obviously, there’s a lot more kinds of blog posts that can attract traffic than just these. Please leave a comment and tell me what kinds of posts you’ve found to work well…