The Seo And Science Behind Using Long-Form Content

Long-form content can frequently be concealed by other forms of implementation that may be glossy or visually engaging. We see it on a regular basis in blog posts, case studies/research, conference decks, and on Twitter- the enormous, flashy content is normally what our attention is drawn towards. Certainly, with the right expertise and sources, you’re able to do each. But it’s exhausting for numerous people to perform at this level over and over again. The worth of long-form content shouldn’t be neglected as a result it may achieve many issues for a model-

• Drive visitors
• Build authority and credibility/reliability
• Add worth to a website as a complete
• Generate hyperlinks and model awareness

The final level was not long ago stronger in our survey, which asked digital entrepreneurs what they felt the most effective type of implementation was for a hyperlink-constructing marketing campaign. These outcomes had been stunning as a result of, as discussed, often the bigger, extra visually interesting content material items that create consideration. That’s the reason long-form content material meets the attention.

WHAT IS LONG-FORM CONTENT?

Long-form content is defined throughout the Internet. Although the agreement is clear on point- if you’re looking to get a 500 words so that the search engines notice your content, you’re not publishing long-form content.

An important personal rule is that anything less than 1,200 words isn’t long-form content. We would advise aiming at 1,500 words minimum. You’ll have a ruthless advantage with an extra cushion. Set a goal of 2,000 words for your long-form content.

Source: ATLANTIC BT

Why is Long-Form Content Better?

There are several reasons for selecting long-form content that we think it’s worth going long-form to tell you about it. Here are some of the important reasons why people long-form content is better and more beneficial.

More experts appear- When you elaborate on the topic, you indicate how much you know or what expertise your business can provide. You’re creating your own space to show your skills, which is totally fine if you’re sharing valuable content and people are finding it knowledgeable. Anyone can answer with a one-liner, but it takes courage to explain with in-depth content and assist a reader’s interest.

Leads to more engagement-  Providing your content is high-quality and not just long; the fact that people are spending their time means they are getting what they want- valuable content. The time they spend on your website before clicking away suggests the value of your website, and Google is paying attention. When people spend too much time on your site, they also have the opportunity to interact with more elements, go through various ads, and be tempted by other offers and call-to-action you may have available.

Lead to better SERP ranking- high-quality content is treasured, and shareable, and leads to higher engagement. This leads to a better ranking on search engine results pages. A better ranking on SERP should generate more traffic, more shares, and more engagement too.

Earns better brand awareness- More long-form content gives your content more weight. Through storytelling posts and engaging, genuine writing, you can help readers or engage customers to learn more about your brand. The easiest and best reason for this is that you’ll have more words to explain your brand. Nobody recommends a return to keyword filling, but it’s a fact that longer articles/blogs can contain more of your keywords, including the brand name. This is especially useful when those keywords are focused on one in-depth topic.

Why Long-Form Content Works Well

There are several reasons why long-form content can go well for a business, and brands do not often take advantage of all of them. We frequently get so caught up with writing the actual content that we forget about the related work we need to do and lose sight of the benefits. Let’s have a look at some of the main reasons why long-form content can work so well, along with how we can get the most from it.

It’s Copy-Rich And Easy For Google To Crawl And Understand

Long-form content is very easy for Google and other search engines to understand. This can be a distinct contrast to more complex content, including data visualization infographics. These executions can look beautiful, but they present an issue when it comes to Google understanding your content. This is because many of the assets that power these kinds of content pieces are things such as images, JavaScript, or data files. Google can creep and index the content, but explaining it as a human would be more challenging.

This Can Impact Mainly In Two Areas-

• Interactive content can rank well in organic search results. If Google does not agree with or understand your content, it’s next to impossible to get traffic.
• Value to your website as a whole is reduced because you’re adding pages that Google doesn’t understand fully.

If we differ with long-form, copy-led content, which is easier to understand, we can see how it can add more value from an organic search outlook.

You Can Target A Range Of Keywords And Generate Organic Traffic

Along with its crawlability, long-form content allows you to target a range of keywords and topics. This means that it is possible to get your content to rank and generate traffic for a long time to come. Now SEO is not as simple as it used to be, and you can’t just insert your keywords and expect to rank; keyword research is alive and well and needs to be incorporated into the writing process and the buyer’s journey. Long-form content can target keywords across an entire topic, expanding your ranking and audience. You can incorporate several headings and sections to do this.

With Google’s changes, it helps users jump directly to the section of a page that helps them the most. Along with their progress in understanding a specific page, it’s possible to cover a range of topics within a long-form piece of content to increase traffic. Long-form content is great for this kind of dive into a topic. Providentially, the chances of small details like this being surfaced by Google are increasing, meaning that the potential for organic traffic is increasing.

Long-Form Content Can Attracts Links And Become Reference Material

Usually overlooked, the advantage of long-form content ranking well is that it attracts more links from third-party websites. This is because bloggers, writers, and journalists will search for sources to reference in the content they’re writing, and if your content ranks well, it may be the one they choose. This is true if your content includes data points or statistics that other writers can reference. For instance, content from HubSpot on marketing statistics has attracted over 10,000 links to the page. It’ll be ranked well for a bunch of keywords that someone uses when looking for reference data or statistics, which will have played a huge part in the growth of links. This means your brand gets more exposure to a wider audience, but the links can still help your organic rankings because links are still the main or most important element of SEO.

Long-Form Content Can Be Evergreen and Regularly Updated

If you want your blog to stay for a couple of months, long-form content is frequently very easy to update and release over and over again. For example, if you run a study on a key topic in your industry in 2021, it’s relevant to update that content again in 2022 with new study information or data. This is not easy when it comes to producing visual content or video content, where the production resources can be more thorough and expensive to change.

Long-Form Content Can Contain Mini-Stories and Several Angles

If you’re working at an agency that has an in-house digital PR team, they’ll love you for this one. Long-form content allows you to turn out multiple angles and stories that may be used for promotional purposes. From a public relations viewpoint, this layout means you’ve got multiple ways to promote a single piece of content. This gives you more websites to target with your outreach, but it’s possible with the content because if one angle fails, you’ve got more to use to try and get links and coverage.

How To Execute Long-Form Content

As we’ve seen various reasons why long-form content can help your brand, let’s look at some of the points to remember if you or your team create such content.

Agree on the core topics you want to write about

Let’s start with the basics- From where do you have to start? It can be easy to go skiing very quickly, although brainstorming, and while making connections between ideas isn’t a bad thing, you need to be able to focus on topics that follow this structure-

1. What Do You Have The Credibility To Talk About?
   What is the mutual knowledge, wisdom, and experience of your company? What are the topics you can talk about? The thing to avoid is coming up with topics that appear to sit too far away from what your brand does. If anyone asks about your topics that why are they talking about that? You may have a problem.
2. What Topics do Will Resonate With Your Audience?
   Explore more about the topic and what your audience wants to learn. What challenges do they have that you can help educate them on? Put yourself in their place and check what you will expect if you were the reader.
3. What Do You Want To Be Known For?
   What topics does your brand want to be known for? This question is so important to answer because you may well have topics that resonate with your audience and that you’re acceptable to write about, but do you want to? This is so important if your company is trying to change its perception or maybe expand into new areas.

What’s The Right Execution?

Long-Form Content isn’t the best way to implement your idea. The worst thing you can do is start the process by saying- I want to produce a 5,000 article or I want to produce a video because you’ll shoehorn your idea into this format, even if it’s not the best way to communicate it. The best way to figure out if long-form content is right for you is to implement your idea right from the start. You’ll get the idea about the points and angles that fit within the topic; long-form content may well be the way forwards.

Put yourself in the audience’s place and ask if long-form content is what they’d expect to find if they looked for information on this topic. Or would the audience expect something short from your side? Is it even a topic that requires lots of detailed copy?

Tips On Long-Form Content

Here are some tips that will help you.

All Content Shouldn’t Be Long-Form Content.

Although long-form content is a great way to establish your website as an authority on a particular subject and help you rank better, you shouldn’t publish everything as long-form content. Some of the topics don’t require lengthy content.  

Avoid The Middle

It seems you’re better off using content that’s either at one extreme or the other in terms of extent. Use very short content that can be quickly accepted by members or use long-form content that’s considered the go-to source for a specific subject.

Remember- Quality Over Quantity

Make a note that while it may be appealing to sacrifice quality for a verbal article, you should resist the urge to do that. Your readers will not be entertained by a great deal of fluff in your articles just to meet a word count. And trust us, that’s the worst thing to do. If you directly jump over to a long-form piece to save time, you might end up with several typos and grammatical errors.

You Can Make Long-Form Content a Quick Read

If you’re focused on appealing to the ADD or BUSY set with your long-form content, you can do that. Use subheadings to make your content more scannable. You’re reading long-form content, and you’ll find that it’s easy to accept the points quickly because of the headings. Also, consider breaking up the monotony of a long-form article with images. It’s best to use relevant images specific to the subject of the article.

To Sum Up

To wrap up, the value or importance of long-form content is clear- it can add value to your brand in several ways, some of which are very obvious but hopefully understandable to you now. These insights should allow you to take advantage of them and improve your outputs. Finally, it’s always about the quality and the way you complete the work. An amazing implementation is unlikely to save a bad idea, while a great idea is unlikely to get the attention it deserves if it performs badly. Focus on the areas, and everything will be easier.