Why Is Long-Form Content Important?

In this digital age era, attentiveness is scarce, and there is much content for the readers to consume. So, do we even need to know if long-form content would work?

Well, actually, we do!  

Creating and sharing long-form content must be the foundation of your content strategy if you want to better your SEO rankings and get more website visitors. Writing in-depth content on topics that you are passionate about and which will attract your audiences to read them will increase your website traffic and boost your brand visibility.

Once you get the hang of what long-form content is and how it is advantageous to your business, you will also transition your short form content into long-form.

But first, let's take a minute to understand what Long-Form Content is.

What Is Long-Form Content?

Long-form content is the type of writing that is in-depth and offers much information on a specific topic. The word limit for long-form content usually ranges anywhere between 1,000 and 7,500 words, with there actually being no upper limit.  The length of your content is typically a variable as it depends on numerous factors, such as the topic, the content marketing goals, and the target audience.

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It requires critical thinking and needs to be well-researched. Moreover, it must serve some specific purpose as it is written to engage your audiences for a more extended period. An article or a guide that is not contextual will not sustain anyone’s attention for long.

There are multiple types of long-form content, such as blogs, e-books, articles, guides, reports, whitepaper, and even tutorials.

Let's come back to our key question now, Why do we need long-form content? And also, how will it be advantageous in today’s times?

You might wonder – if it is long, will it even grab the reader’s attention, or whether it is suitable for user engagement.

We are here to break the myth and tell you all about Long-Form. But first, let's know the basics of writing long-form content.

This genre of content writing aims to provide some valuable information to readers. Therefore, when writing long-form content, we should ensure that it is relevant to the reader and is both informative and helpful to them.

Here are a few tips for creating long-form content:

• The paragraphs should be segregated and spaced out for better readability.
• All the important topics should be divided into sub-sections
• The content should be well organized and contain all the relevant information on the subject.
• Most importantly, your introduction should be engaging enough to hook the reader for the rest of the article.
• Visual Data plays a significant role in keeping the audience engaged.
• The content should be interactive and maintain a conversational tone throughout.
• A superb way to keep your audience interested is to inform them about what is covered in each section and how it is helpful to them.

15 Advantages of Long-Form Content

It is Evergreen

Long-form never goes out of style. This form of content stays relevant even after 2–3 years and covers topics not usually limited to a period or are most commonly shared online.

It is a misconception that longer articles do not grab as much attention as short-form content. On the contrary, according to extensive studies conducted by multiple credible sources, lengthier content draws more readers.

In the 2022 edition of the State of Content Marketing Report by SEMRush, content with more than 3000 words drove the most traffic organically. Next in line was content with a word count ranging between 2,000 and 3,000.

Image Source: State of Content Marketing 2022 Report

More Shares

According to Hubspot Content Writing analysis of its long-form content, it is clear that there is a positive correlation between higher word count and increasing social shares. In addition, longer content tends to increase the number of average social shares.

Image Source: Hubspot

It is clear from the above report that articles with a 2,500 word count get the most shares on social media. Therefore, long-form content improves organic reach, gets better ranking in social media algorithms and more social shares.

More Backlinks

With more social media shares and organic reach, long-form content also has more inbound links leading to external websites. As a result, it allows you to create more partnerships and referral businesses and add more credibility to your content.

Short-form content does not contain that much valuable information and does not link to extensive resources. On the contrary, long-form provides ample vast resources, which helps it earn more links.

According to the Hubspot study, content with more than 2,500 words earned the highest number of links. The 2022 study published by SEMRush has indicated similar results.

Image Source: State of Content Marketing 2022 Report

Google-Friendly

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Studies indicate that more extended content rules page one of Search Engine Rankings. To put it simply, Google prefers content-rich websites.

Long-form content has higher chances of providing in-depth information conveniently in one place, providing answers to the questions asked by users without them having to look for other sites. Google understands this advantage, due to which long-form content tends to stand out in search rankings.

Helps Writers Write Better

When writing about a particular topic, writers have to research a lot to add value to their content. They may go for the highest-ranking search results and attribute them to their content in such a scenario. They aim to find relevant references, and long-form content easily serves that purpose.

Long-form content is what attracts the most attention to the writers. Writers want to include valuable data to make their content credible and believable no matter the domain. Long-form studies and reports competently cater to that.

High Reader Value

Long-form content is beneficial not only for writers but also for readers. This form of writing is so engaging that it grips readers and offers them more insights into a specific subject. Further, Google states that long-form content serves the information requirement of users, helping them learn more about broad issues.

It generally adds more value for readers as they tend to get all the details they need from a single website. Also, giving readers more educational and high-quality content helps you build trust among your audiences.

Knowledge Sharing For All

Well-written, in-depth, quality content presents relevant information to both those who are new to a topic and those who have some knowledge about it.  By sharing extensive data and details on specific subjects you can help people increase their awareness and knowledge about that subject.

Higher Industry Authority

Producing long-form content is a brilliant way to showcase industry expertise. The best marketing companies and authorities consistently publish long-form content that showcases their market expertise.

These companies provide in-depth information and actual statistics, and insights that affirm their status and knowledge of the industry. These brands also build trust and confidence in their writing and establish a long-term relationship with their targetted audience and readers.

Consumers are also more likely to trust a brand that offers comprehensive information on the ongoing trends and practices in the industry. Moreover, thoroughly discussing and elaborating on research and insights give readers a sense of truth and credibility.

Regular Visits To Your Website

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The more time a visitor spends on your site, the more they learn about you and your company. If they get the information that they are looking for on your website your targetted audience will keep visiting your website regularly to stay updated on the topics that are interesting to them.

A reader who finds your content engaging and fun will also always remember and return to your content whenever they need to learn about something similar. It will eventually become their go-to place to know more about similar niches.

Over a while, these frequent visitors could become paying customers for the products and services you offer.

Boosted Conversion Rates

In long-form content marketing, information can be studded with call-to-actions (CTAs), which will generate leads and, eventually, conversions. As a result, long-form content provides companies with a massive scope for strategically placing CTAs that readers can click on if they want to buy a product or service.

Long-form content effectively answers most consumer questions instead of directing them to several pages with a mishmash of information.

Personal Branding

Long content helps entrepreneurs, co-founders, or CEOs build their image on social media channels. By writing a weekly or monthly article or blog piece, they can share their views on varied topics that are interesting and helpful to their target audience. That will help them grow their followers and network on social media channels.

Being written in their own words, these blogs or articles allow a decision-maker to define their brand in their voice and control its image publicly rather than leaving the brand-building in the hands of the media.

A Differentiator

High-quality, long-form content enables a company to stand out from the competition by establishing its brand. In addition, longer content works more efficiently than other content formats to allow a business leader to communicate a differentiated viewpoint to pursue personal and professional brand promotion.

This distinguishes the company from its competitors and helps in customer retention and attachment. It also provides the most practical benefit - increased search rankings.

More Emphasis on Keywords

Long-form content proves to be of high appeal to most creators and marketing managers because it allows them to use keywords relevant to their business.  

You can place the keywords throughout the content without it seeming like spam for better SEO results. SEO and keyword research should be your top priorities if you want to boost your search engine rankings.

Cover Different Angles

Longer forms of writing are better since they enable authors to explore many aspects of a particular topic or narrative. For instance, you're writing about Search Engine Optimization, a vast and generalized topic, you can write about its importance, background, current statistics, and potential, among other things.

Covering a topic from different angles helps you attract a wide range of audiences to it thereby increasing the number of visitors to your website.

Long-Form – Longer Benefits

Be sure it's current and covers the latest trends whenever you decide on a theme to write about. This way, you will be well able to update it from time to time, re-release it, and benefit from it in the long haul. For instance, if you have already covered the industry trends in 2021, you can always go back and modify the content with the latest statistics for the current year.

Visual information can be challenging to edit, but upgrading long-form information is an excellent way of keeping it alive and high-ranked. You can also use a paraphrasing tool to change the tone and edit the long-form content easily. When you optimize your content, you have the opportunity to re-promote and attract new users to check it out. You also begin establishing your authority on that subject since consumers expect you to provide additional information.

How To Execute Long-Form Content

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You need to ask yourself some questions before working on long-form content.

• What business goals do you want to achieve with this type of content?
  
• Are you looking for better search engine results, more brand awareness, more website traffic, more brand authority, deeper stakeholder engagement, or higher conversion rates for your company?
  
• What will your content look like? Will it be an essay, a blog post, a white paper or report based on research, a case study, or an e-book?
  
• Who is your content's intended audience? Does it include current or potential clients or consumers, referrers, influencers, employers, suppliers, regulators, and targeted communities?
  
• What kinds of material do you think your target audience will respond to the most? For example, do they prefer amusing and straightforward stories or product descriptions that are more technical?
  

The opportunity of showcasing your company's experience, authority, personality, and brand identity content by publishing long-form content is one-of-a-kind and yet critical. Therefore, the tone of the material should be consistent with the style of all of your other business communications for the best outcomes.

If you run a company that caters to a younger demographic, your tone of voice should be light, informal, irreverent, and even comical. On the other hand, your style of speech should be more professional, serious, considerate, and polite if your company is a traditional office setup that serves a mature client base in the corporate world.

You can go for more conversational language (an interactive way of writing) rather than formal terminology such as jargon when unsure about the tone.

The Future of Long-Form Content

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Long-form content is expected to become profitable for marketers in the conceivable future, now that Google is much more flexible with it.

Unless the execution of your content is strategically planned, well-written, and aggressively promoted, there is no bright future for it. The quality of your long-form content must be good to capture the audience, attract your intended targets, and keep the audience engaged.

To avoid the tedious research for the long form articles and make your content stand out from the rest, you can always hire a content writer. Wishup offers virtual assistants for hire who can help you with all your content requirements.

Long-form content is well worth the time and effort if you're willing to do the work - conduct quality research, know your target audience, plan your content marketing strategy, and compose in a clear, authoritative, and convincing way.