Introduction
Are you having trouble ranking certain keywords that ought to be simple? Even though you believe your website has some excellent content, are you having problems drawing visitors? If so, you might want to think about including more lengthy content.
With the help of long-form content, you can establish yourself as a more knowledgeable authority in your industry, boost audience size and engagement, raise your search engine results page (SERP) ranking, and establish your authority on the topic. You gain from all of that and see an increase in brand recognition.
Long-Form Content: What Is It?
The definition of long-form content varies across the Internet. On one point, though, there is broad agreement: you are not producing long-form content if your goal is to surpass the 500 word threshold and attract the attention of search engines.
I consider anything under 1,200 words to be outside the scope of long-form content. I would suggest aiming for more than 1,500 words, as 1,200 is, in my view, the absolute minimum. With the additional cushion, you’ll have a competitive advantage.
So why not make a big bet? Aim for 2,000 words when creating long-form content. It’s been a while since I released a post with fewer than 1,000 words. These days, I aim for 1,500–7,000 words in most cases.
Benefits of long-form Content-
It is only recently that the advantages of long-form content in the digital realm have come to light. It may surprise you to learn that digital long-form content was once thought to be a bad idea.
Of course, no one outside of a certain corporate headquarters in Mountain View, California knows exactly what algorithm Google uses to determine which pages should appear first in the SERPs for a given query.
The ability to rank for more keywords, particularly long-tail and semantic keywords related to your main topic, is one of the main advantages of long-form content. With long-form content, you can address more ground, address more queries, and give your audience greater value.
This can increase your visibility and traffic by telling Google that your content is thorough, reliable, and pertinent. Long-form content can also draw more backlinks from other websites because it can be used as a resource for additional learning or as a reference source. One of the most significant ranking factors is the quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to your content.
Conversion Rates Can Be Raised by Long-Form Content
In the event that your blog features a call-to-action, be it for email list building or product sales, you’ll discover that long-form content influences your conversion rate.
Long-form content is cherished by social media
Making content that can be shared on social media is one of the best strategies to attract a big audience, boost engagement, and increase conversions. In the past, long-form content has also performed better in this metric than its shorter brother.
On average, longer content generates more backlinks
Writing several thousand words has two benefits for SEO: first, it seems to be favoured by search engines, and second, it generates more backlinks. Naturally, having those extra backlinks will also improve your SERP ranking.
According to a Moz study, there is a direct relationship between the amount of backlinks pointing to a piece of content and its length. It’s more proof that long-form content boosts search engine rankings.
Challenges of long-form content
Long-form content creation and optimisation are not without their difficulties, though. A major obstacle is striking the correct ratio between quantity and quality. Writing long-form content just for the sake of length is not a good idea since it can produce dull, repetitive, or irrelevant content that will negatively impact both user experience and SEO.
Writing long-form content that fulfils the search intent and audience expectations while also being interesting, educational, and helpful is what you want to do. Additionally, you want to steer clear of thin content and duplication, as these can hurt your performance and ranking.
Having the same or comparable content on several pages is known as duplication, and it can confuse Google and weaken your authority. Having content that is shallow, poor quality, or offers little to no value to your readers is referred to as thin content, and it can damage your reputation and lack of credibility.
Tips for creating long-form content
Here are some pointers you may find useful when it comes time to create long-form content.
It’s important to use helpful tools and adhere to certain best practices when creating long-form content. Use resources like Google Keyword Planner, AnswerThePublic, or SEMrush to analyse related terms as you begin by investigating the keywords that members of your target audience are using. Next, using MindMeister, Evernote, or Google Docs, plan your content structure by creating an outline of your main points, subheadings, and supporting details.
Write in an understandable, conversational style, stay away from jargon and filler, and include pertinent information. To check your grammar, spelling, readability, and style, use Grammarly, Hemingway, or ProWritingAid. Last but not least, use keywords wisely in the title, headings, body, and meta tags to improve your content for search engines. You can assess your performance with the aid of programmes like Moz, Ahrefs, or Yoast SEO.
Not All Content Has to Be Long-Form
You shouldn’t publish everything as long-form content, even though it’s a terrific way to position your website as an authority on a certain topic and improve search engine rankings. Long-form content is not necessary for all subjects.
For instance, you don’t have to write 2,000 words to explain a viral video you want to post on your website if you think it will attract viewers.
Remember: Quality Over Quantity
Remember that even though it could be tempting to forgo quality in favour of an overly talkative piece, you should fight the urge to do so. If you write a lot of “fluff” in your articles to fit the word count, your readers won’t find it appealing. That seems like the worst course of action.
To save time, you should avoid rushing through lengthy pieces as this could result in an excessive amount of typos and grammatical errors. Search engines might pick up on that and penalise your website for it. Developing that skill was among the most challenging things I had to learn because I like to produce content quickly. But exercising patience is preferable.
Tips for optimizing long-form content –
Producing lengthy content is only half the battle; you also need to optimise it for search engines and user interface.
You should use multimedia components, such as pictures, videos, infographics, and charts, to achieve this. Include links to other pertinent pages on your website as well as to other reliable online resources.
To make your content more concise, use lists and bullet points to break up your text and create subheadings. Lastly, maintain the freshness of your content by adding new facts, figures, information, or examples on a regular basis. Make use of tools like Google Analytics, Listly, LinkMiner, and more to help you optimise your long-form content.