When you think about Internet marketing, you might believe that you need to create short, quick content regularly. That’s because people today are always busy, always moving, and their attention spans are short. Just look at how popular things like X, Instagram Stories, TikTok and WhatsApp are. So, you might think that long-form content wouldn’t attract much of a following online, right? Well, not necessarily.
There’s something called long form content, and it’s helpful in online marketing. Despite what you might think, long articles rank well, get read, and can lead to people taking action. Some people even made a website that only publishes long articles and they got millions of followers. The key is making sure your content is really good and using it the right way.
What is Long-Form Content?
Describing long-form content is pretty simple. It’s just a long piece of writing, audio, or video. Now, what counts as “long” can vary, but generally, written content is considered long-form if it’s over 1,200 words. For audio and video, it’s usually over two minutes, but sometimes even hour-long videos work great for marketing.
Here’s something you might not have thought about: Movies like The Avengers and The Lego Movie are examples of long-form video content. You know how after watching a superhero movie, people often want to buy superhero stuff? And after watching The Lego Movie, kids might bug their parents to get them Lego toys. That’s because good long form content doesn’t feel like marketing. It just gets people interested in what you’re offering.
Why Engage in Long-Form Content Marketing?
Many people think that long articles or videos won’t get popular online and that a company that only makes long content will struggle to keep fans. But, there’s a website that proves this idea wrong. Even their longest post, which is 1,600 words, got over 2 million shares! And even their less popular articles still got thousands of shares.
Business owners and online marketers are starting to see the benefits of long form content. They’re realizing that if you do it right, long content can work well! They’re also figuring out that the idea that social media killed long articles is wrong. Long content is helpful for search engines and people on the internet.
The SEO Benefit of Long-Form Content
There is no denying the importance of SEO in online marketing, which is why marketers began to use long-form content when they realized it offers some important SEO benefits. These benefits include the following:
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High Rankings
Back in 2012, a study found that longer articles tended to rank higher on Google. They looked at over 20,000 keywords and saw that the top ten results were about 2,000 words long on average. The number one result was even longer, around 2,416 words. Even Google itself hinted that longer articles are important. They mentioned they were adding new search results to help people find more detailed articles. Both the study and Google’s post show that longer articles can help you rank better on Google.
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More Backlinks
Moz conducted a study that showed a direct correlation between a content’s length and the number of backlinks it gets. As you very well know, a good number of quality backlinks also helps improve your SERP rankings. It is also a clear indication that there is a good number of people who trust you and look to you for high-quality content. This is not only good for SEO, but for your business in general. And it is further proof that long content can be highly valuable to your online marketing efforts.
- Increased Conversion Rates
When Basecamp made a longer version of their Highrise product home page, they saw a 37% increase in people signing up. Digital marketing expert Neil Patel also tried short and long pages on his website. He found that the longer one got more people to sign up. Crazy Egg saw their sign-up rate go up by over 30% when they started using longer content on their website. These examples show that longer content can help get more people to take action on your website.
The User Benefit of Long-form Content
If you need more proof that people like long-form content, just look at how well it does on social media. Social media is a big deal for connecting with your followers, and the best way to get them engaged is by sharing stuff they want to pass on to their friends. And guess what? Long articles or videos get shared more often than short ones.
Neil Patel did another test, this time on social media. He found that articles under 1,500 words got around 59 Facebook Likes and 174 tweets on average. But longer articles (over 1,500 words) got about 75 Facebook Likes and 293 tweets.
John Lincoln, who writes for Ignite Visibility University, looked at his posts and found that most of his popular ones were over 1,000 words. NewsWhip, a news site, found that their most shared article was over 3,000 words long! This all goes to show that even though people are busy, they still like good, detailed content.
Long-Form Content Reminders and Tips
Now that you know how valuable long-form content can be, all you need to do is adjust your website such that it only contains long content, right? Oh, if only things were that simple. As mentioned earlier, the key to successful content marketing is doing it right. And doing it right involves knowing when to use long-form content. No matter how valuable a tool long-form content is, it cannot be the end-all and be-all of your online marketing efforts. There are just some instances wherein it wouldn’t work as well as short-form content will.
When and How to Use It
Long-form content works best when you’re trying to show you know a lot about something, build strong connections with your audience over time, and get lots of people to visit your website without paying for ads. But how do you keep people interested when your content is long? One way is to give them practical tips they can use. Also, instead of just trying to sell stuff, use long articles or videos to tell a story. Remember how we talked about Marvel movies earlier? They’re a great example of how storytelling can keep people hooked.
When NOT to Use Long-form Content
There are times when you have a very important message that needs to be sent out immediately (e.g. special promos, a breakthrough in your niche, etc.). In this case, short-form content is a better bet. You may then supplement the initial short-form content with long-form content at a later time; what’s important is that you’ve made your audience aware of the latest news and caught their interest. You can use your long form content to provide further details.
Bonus tip: You can go from one extreme to the other, but try to avoid the middle when you decide on the length of your content. Kevin Delaney, editor-in-chief of Quartz (a business news site), says the type of content that is least likely to perform well is content that ranges between 500 and 800 words. It is best to stay away from that length.
Whether you use short-form or long-form content, always remember to maintain high quality in every piece of content you publish. At the end of the day, quality will always matter more than length and quantity when it comes to content marketing. It is quality that people read. It is quality that people link to. It is quality that people share. And it is quality that can give you the kind of SERP rankings and conversions you are aiming for.