There are several ways to implement your content strategy. In our earlier post on content marketing strategy, we covered the importance of creating quality content tailored to your niche and ideal customers. However, not all content serves the same purpose. There’s a time for short, scannable posts, snappy social messages, and a need for in-depth long-form content.
Getting the right balance of content types is key for small businesses on limited resources. So, when does it make sense to invest the extra effort into developing comprehensive long-form content? Read on as we dive deeper into the definition, strategic use cases, and considerations for leveraging long-form content effectively as a small business.
What Is Long-Form Content?
Long-form content refers to any content with higher word counts that covers a topic more extensively. Typically long-form content is defined as:
- Over 1,000 words (some sources say 1,500+ words or even 2,000+ words)
- An in-depth, comprehensive exploration of a topic
- Designed for slow, immersive consumption versus skimming
Examples of long-form content include:
- Ultimate guides
- Ebooks or downloadable reports
- Market research and analytical content
- Behind-the-scenes narratives
- Listicle-style posts organised into sections
The length allows readers to really engage and absorb information, while satisfying their appetite for expertise around niche topics related to your business. This helps establish trust and thought leadership.
5 Reasons Why Long-Form Content Works
On an average, long-form content attracts 77.2% more clicks than shorter articles. You also get the extra benefit that it works well for thought leadership and brand building. By giving your visitors a deeper, better experience than short-form content, you also have a greater chance of engaging with them and turning them into a lead or customer the more qualified traffic you drive to your website. Long-form content is good at bringing in the correct kind of traffic.
Here are five reasons why long-form content works:
1. It is great for SEO
A joint analysis by Ahrefs and Backlinko discovered that the average article length on Google first-page result is 1,447 words. Long-form content makes it simpler for marketers to obtain a top SERP (Search Engine Results Page) position. A lengthy post of 1,500 or 2,000 offers more room to include target keywords than one with only 500 words. Longer postings can also target a wider range of search terms than shorter ones, thereby building relevance for various traffic sources. This assists in search – the raison d’etre for your high-quality content.
2. It Generates Authority for Your Brand
Brand authority is the level of trust that a brand has earned among customers, as well as the degree to which they regard your brand as a subject-matter expert. Authority can be influenced by a variety of factors, including strong and compelling content, an active online presence, and social media engagement.
Writing authoritative content can help your business as a respected digital source. Every piece of content you produce should be relevant to your buyers. Use first person writing to connect better with them. Comprehensive long-form content positioned around questions your target audience has also demonstrates your grasp of the topics that matter most to them. When done right, it can help solidify your status as a trusted industry thought leader. Small businesses can leverage long-form content to punch above their weight against larger competitors.
Longer content provides more opportunities to place relevant knowledge that readers are interested in sharing because it is filled with helpful information and contains a lot of it. The more text real estate there is, the more opportunities there are to include quality hyperlinks and other references. As a result, you can link to relevant blogs from your own site or take some space to offer some of your favourite resources, without feeling like you’re stuffing link after link onto your site.
4. It Validates Your Product’s Value Proposition
Long-form content lets you move beyond the surface to really educate about complicated or multi-layered products and services. This is perfect for small businesses offering specialised expertise that requires more explanation for the average reader, for example financial services, medicines, or technology. Lean into long-form when you want to showcase the depth of your knowledge.
Buyers consume a lot of information before engaging with a business. Long-form content can help slowly nurture prospects along that journey, building familiarity with your brand until they are ready to convert. The depth allows you to answer potential questions and objections thoroughly prior to direct sales conversations.
5. Increase Time on Page
With word counts upwards of 2,000+ words by definition, long-form drives increased time on your website as visitors immerse themselves reading your content. More time on page is a signal to search engines that content is relevant. This can further benefit SEO. It also gives important supporting evidence of engagement and other measurable metrics to improve your content strategy.
The fact is that long-form content enables marketers to be specific about the features and advantages they provide. The outcome is a high level of authority for the brand due to its readiness to back up each one of its assertions.
Given this, businesses operating in low-trust sectors or new categories may profit from a content marketing strategy that makes use of long-form publications to establish authority. Long-form content can help businesses establish credibility by providing readers with the information they seek and demonstrating their reliability as a source of information.
With all these reasons for how long-form content works, let us look at how you can create the best content that speaks to your brand and its voice.
How to Create Winning Long-Form Content
If you are ready to embark on a long-form content project, keep these considerations in mind to make the most of the significant investment in time and resources required to create an informative, entertaining piece. Make long-form posts as engaging as possible while you look for ways to make them a high-value aspect of your content marketing strategy:
1. Know What Your Readers Want to Read About
Long-form material fails when it attempts to cram too much or too little significant substance into a single piece. Choose your 1000+ words with care; consumers willing to put in the time to read that much content expect quality information from trustworthy sources that are free of fluff. Identify your goal, narrow your topic area focus, and create a clear outline to guide the writing before you begin writing or hiring a professional organisation to execute.
2. Research is King
Just because you know a lot about 18th-century boat design does not guarantee that it is a topic that will help your business or that it has a large readership! Use keyword ranking tools and analytics to determine whether topics are worth creating long-form content for and where it will be consumed. Wait until you have something relevant, timely, and informative to expound on before going on a long-form content endeavour.
3. Keep It Readable
Just because the search algorithm prefers long form content, cramming it with keywords is not helpful. Over-optimising on keywords will stretch your content thin. So will writing long paragraphs and sentences.
Take note of your writing style, including readability, clarity, and delivery. Learn how web visitors engage with content by using eye-tracking and online behaviour studies. Short paragraphs, bullet points, and graphics, in general, allow for a more enjoyable reading experience since they prevent overloading readers with massive blocks of text.
4. Get Creative: Add Hooks and Multimedia
The fundamentals of writing content are the same – whether you choose long or short. Creativity and visual breaks are important. In addition to using brief paragraphs and headings to break up large sections, using visuals is a critical approach to keep the reader engaged. Long-form content allows you to republish old content from print media, films, and webinar events as long-form pieces, giving inert content new life.
It is not always necessary to utilise graphics or videos. You can also use blockquotes or large highlighted quotes as well as anchor text that brings the reader back to the sections mentioned earlier in the writing.
5. Stay True to Your Brand
When writing a long content, it is easy to lose track of what you are writing about and run off on a tangent. Keep your brand voice in mind at all times. Stick to the brand archetype your product or service stands for and convey what you want through the content.
Consider what topics will be of interest to your audience and fits well with your brand. If you are unsure, consult your team and customers, or look at your analytics to see which of your pieces received the most engagement and whether they might work with a long-form treatment.
Long or not? Three Questions to know when to use Long-form content
When it comes to long-form material, you must develop an interesting reading experience to keep people engaged. The benefit of devoting time and resources to creating high-quality, creative, and useful long-form material is that it has the potential for tremendous rewards.
An amazing piece of writing will not just help you impress visitors to your website or blog. You will enjoy long-term rewards for both your website and your organisation if you continually publish quality, smart, and distinctive articles. It is essential to keep in mind these 3 questions before you change up your entire content:
- Does the reader want a quick answer or a deep-dive explanation?
- Is long-form content ranking for your relevant keyword?
- Does your content address a niche question?
If the answers to the above questions points towards long-form content, invest time and effort to make it work. As a final note, we share some proven tips to improve readability on your long-form content:
- Do not write long, rambling paragraphs. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point.
- Experiment with posts that are “list-based” or “why-based.”
- Experiment with video and question-and-answer forms.
- Break up your material with images and subheadings.
- Before you post, double-check your grammar!
- Keep the best SEO strategies in mind.
- To summarise your ideas, use bullet points.
- Make an index so that users may scroll to relevant content. Structure your post with clear headings.
Happy writing!
