Create Lists

Lists are an easy way to make beautiful roundups and landing pages, and come with Google markup!

Karla avatar
Written by Karla
Updated over a week ago

Create Lists are the answer to all of your roundup and landing page woes. No more manually downloading images and manually formatting posts.

There are tons of different uses for Create Lists, but here are some awesome examples we've seen thus far:

  1. Roundups – Put together round-ups quickly and easily. Feature all of your best content and get those internal-links! You can also feature your favorite blogger friends as well by plugging in a URL into the external URL field.

  2. Menu Plans – Do you put together weekly or monthly menu plans of your favorite dishes? Set them up in a list format to make it so simple for your readers to navigate.

  3. "Best Of" – or "Top 10" types of posts.

  4. Destination lists – for travel sites.

  5. Project groupings – such as "25 Easy Crafts using Paper Plates!"

  6. How are you using it? Post in the Facebook group and show off your Lists!

NOTE ON RECOMMENDED POSTS:
Many people have been successfully utilizing Create Lists for adding recommended related content into their posts.

It is our strong opinion that internal links are best for SEO when you include them in the text, organically, as opposed to a list of links. That being said, if you'd like to utilize Create lists for these types of use cases, please just make sure to DISABLE THE SCHEMA.

How to Create a List

If you've already been utilizing the Recipe or How-To cards, this part will be easy for you.

Adding a list is just like adding another card type. You can either add them in the Create > Add New menu in the Wordpress admin side menu bar, or you can add a list right from the post you are editing.


Once you have a brand new list created, the first thing you will do is to give it a name.

Remember, the name is going to be visible on the live site, so make it engaging and descriptive about what'll be included in the list itself.

You'll also need to add a description, and choose which layout you'd like to use. We have four available currently that inherit CSS from your theme to make sure they fit in seamlessly with the rest of your content.

Make sure your List description is keyword rich and describes what users will get from the List as a whole.

Adding Items To The List

Create Lists have 3 different types of List Items that can be added:

  1. Internal Posts

  2. Internal Create Cards

  3. External Links

Use keywords from the post title in your search for internal posts or Create Cards.

You can also choose other items to exclude or include in your search in the "Search Options" area. Want to search the content as well as the title? You can do that here. Want to only display Create Recipe Cards in your results? You can do that too.

What's the benefit of adding a Create Card to a List instead of just the post?

If you add Create Cards as List Items, you'll have the option to include some card-specific items that are pretty neat!

Tip: The ORDER that you click the items is the same order that they'll appear in the List Item display!

Then the extra will display in the List according to the layout you've chosen.

EXTERNAL LINKS IN LISTS

You can also link to outside sources if you'd like! Show your blogging friends some link love by adding them into a list or two. To link externally, you'll need to register your Create plugin.

Only internal links will be export with the schema output, per the schema guidelines.

List Button Displays

Currently, if you add a Create Recipe card as the list item, the button will say, "Get the Recipe".

If you add anything other than a Create Recipe Card as the list item, the button will say, "Continue Reading".

You can customize your List button text display in Create 1.4+ here:

About Item Descriptions
It is very important to add unique descriptions to each items in each list you make. Even if a description pulls in automatically, as happens when you add Create Cards to your list, it is best practice to make it unique to this list for this use for best SEO.

Notes on disabling JSON-LD schema

Create Lists give you the option to Disable JSON - LD Schema on individual lists. You would want to do this in certain situations where you do not want Google to "see" the list and put it in the list carousel in search. These instances would include, but are not limited to:

1. Using the list to recommend related content in a post

Real life example:
I have a recipe post about Grilled Ribs. I include a short Create List linking to 4 of my favorite BBQ Sides. You would not want a list carousel showing up under the Grilled Ribs Recipe heading, but include list items that aren't Grilled Ribs.

If you had a list with 4 OTHER grilled ribs recipes? Leave the schema on.

2. When the List isn't the MAIN focus of the post

If you aren't sure if the schema should be on or off, please reach out and let us know.

What if I need help?

If you have any questions about Create by Mediavine, please reach out to create@mediavine.com. We also have a Facebook Group where you can consult other Create users!

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