Why Should You Start Creating Long-Form Content Now?
If you are a blogger or a content writer, then the idea of writing long-form content or lengthy blog post may have struck your mind once in your working period. Possibly, you may have even written one.
However, the fact that the Google algorithm prefers the quality content irrespective of its length might have told you to drop the idea.
‘I don’t know how to write one’ can also be the reason to pull you back from writing one.
Well, this was me. However, I soon realized that it deserves focus and attention.
If you have the same experience as mine, this post is for you, and even if not, still this post is a must-read when the thought is wandering in your mind.
Here, you will get to know why you should start creating long-form content or blog now and by the end of this post, you will leave with some accurate tips for writing one such long-form and valuable content.
What is long-form content and how long a piece of the blog should be?
Before proceeding on our subject that why does long-form content or blog posts matter, we should take a look at what is a long-form content and how long a blog piece should be?
Content is diverse in itself, and long-form content may include;
· Blog Posts
· Case Studies
· White Papers
· E-books
· Brochures, and more.
We will discuss their importance and their leveraging force some other day. Sticking to our subject, let’s talk here on long-form blog posts only.
Now, coming back to our question, how long a blog post should be? A long-form blog must have 1000–2000+ words. However, I will suggest 2000 or 2000+ words for the same. The reason is that during the editing phase, you may have to cut down your long sentences into short ones. Obviously, to make your writing easy to understand for your readers.
There is no barrier in writing words, and I have seen bloggers, which creates blog posts over 3000 and even 4000 words. Some of them which I have read and experienced are;
· MOZ
· Ahref
However, while writing such blog posts, you should make sure that you don’t write for just the sake of writing long posts. The piece must be valuable and informative. You can notice what information and value I am talking about in the above recommendations.
We have a few tips for you to make your long blogs valuable enough, and we will discuss them at the end of this post. So, sit back and relax for now.
Why long blog posts?
So, why long blog posts are even necessary?
Informative: Well, they are necessary because they cover a bunch more queries in a single post. They have deep insights into the subject or topic the end-user is looking for.
If I ask you to choose between a blog post and a book, you’ll go with the latter one only if you want in-depth and valid information. So, does it stand true with this case?
Not Really!
Why do I pay for a book when I can get the information in a compressed book— as a blog with around 1000–2000+ words for free?
Google Loves It: The Google algorithm like Panda, Penguin, Humming Bird majorly focusses on content’s quality and its length. They make sure that the content is original, and it brings the best answers to the consumer’s query.
In short, a deep and lengthy blog post has the potential to answer users thoroughly and will cover more than a single query.
Also, it will not only help the blogger to top the SERP but also builds trust and branding among the users.
On top of that, I have never seen any blog post that has a shorter length like 300–400 words at the top of SERP for any query. The case becomes different if the two significant factors of Google ranking — authoritativeness and trustworthiness enter the scenario.
Moreover, the lengthy blogs are working for other bloggers, and that is enough reliable proof in itself.
Still, I searched ‘how to become a freelancer?’
This blog has topped the result, which has more than 4000-word count.
Then, we tried with one of the topics like this; ‘how to start a business?’
The top search result brings us to the blog, which has 1000+ word count.
However, the blog below the first one has more word count than the former one, i.e., 4000+ words. Still, it couldn’t score the top position.
The reason is Google’s algorithm, the title of the first blog matches with its domain name, and that’s algorithm prioritizes.
Google also prioritizes indexing of the domains that drive on a particular niche. I will keep it aside for now as it will pull us to an endless discussion on SEO & Google algorithms.
Rich Text Snippets: Rich text snippet scores more attention than any other search result with an ordinary meta tag and title.
Google usually extracts the snippet from lengthy posts or from the blogs whose answers match with the search intent. Blog posts with text snippets often get more clicks than an ordinary blog post.
Google crawler has millions and billions of indexed data in its data store from where it presents different combinations of results to different users depending upon the search query and user location.
You can see clearly on the above screenshots that every search result I searched had a rich-text snippet.
Google tries to deliver more exact answers to user queries. Hence, the text snippet introduction proved to be very beneficial.
More Social Shares: Any valuable and informative content will lead to maximum social shares. The world's popular blogs of their industries that are trusted, and long enough have witnessed the fantastic number of social shares.
The primary reason is that the users find them useful, and the second is they appear on the first result page.
The data released by SerpIQ regarding the top ten blogs appeared on the first search result has the average word count of 2000 words.
High Conversions: In my sense, high conversions are the by-product of the blog or blog post’s traffic. A blog appearing on the first SERP obviously has larger traffic compared to the post on the second or third result page.
However, this doesn’t stop here. The social shares that we have discussed above push the traffic to a higher extent. All you need is a few more facts, accurate solutions to user’s queries, necessary tips, statistics to support facts & infographics to absorb content quickly.
Why There is Content Everywhere?
Okay! This question may have buzzed you.
There is content everywhere, and every other blogger and writer is saying that ‘Content is King.’
The content has served thousands of people on this globe and even more, and it is serving for decades, even when there was no Internet. The petroglyph and ancient manuscripts are one of the oldest examples of content and their role was still the same — to convey the information.
The content was there since the beginning and the lives without informative content are nearly unimaginable. It is the foundation of living and that’s why it is known as the king.
The world is living on various stuff other than food
The world is surviving on money, feelings, empathy, hope, even jealousy, hate, and things you can’t even imagine.
Content is one of the parts of it, as we have discussed above. People are surviving on content, advancing with its help by avoiding living the same cycle their ancestors have lived. It is necessary for growth, either life or business.
It is one of the simplest methods to share among people if you have discovered or invented something new or life-changing?
So, If you want to;
· Grow your business
· Get high traffic
· Need more leads and sales
· Want to influence the audience
· Need to create awareness
The content will require. You have to give something to get something.
Oh Yes! I remember my promise
It’s time for the promise.
How can I forget to share those essential tips that I promised to deliver in the beginning? The tips will help you to stay out of creating lengthy blog posts that have nothing but just words.
· Always use evergreen titles; this will keep you out of the stress of updating the post every month or year. Evergreen content such as; how-to posts. How to lose weight fast, how to get rid of pimples are comes under such categories.
· Use media in your content like images, gifs, videos, audios, statistics, surveys to strengthen the data and boredom out of the context.
· Always present valid proofs in your posts and avoid links to Wikipedia. Topics on Wikipedia can be edited by anyone and by this, I mean anyone.
· Do your research too. It is always better to show your audience that you also work other than writing the post.
· Use space between the headings. A little extra space makes the headings and content breathable and creates the appearance well enough.
· Include H1 and H2 tags in your blog posts.
Final Thoughts
Researched, well written, and quality blog posts have always been preferred by readers as well as by Google bot. Such content will still rank higher until and unless Google proposes a new update that will change the whole game. Google can never be biased to any content.
Creating a short post doesn’t mean you won’t be able to reach the first result page.
However, it means that a little extended piece can provide much leverage as compared to a shorter post.
Do you have any views on long blog posts? Let me know in the comments.
