Are you struggling to rank some keywords that should be easy? Are you having trouble attracting an audience to your site, even though you think you’re offering some great information? If so, then maybe you should consider adding more long-form content.
To put it succinctly, long-form content can make you look like more of an expert in your field, increase the likelihood of engagement and sharing, improve your search engine results page (SERP) rank, and increase your audience; because of your content, you will be viewed as an “authority” on the subject. All of that works to your benefit and translates to better brand awareness.
What Is Long-Form Content?
Long-form content is variously defined throughout the Interweb. However, the consensus is pretty clear on one point: If you’re just looking to get past a 500-word mark so that the search engines take notice of your content, then you’re not publishing long-form content.
My personal rule of thumb is that anything less than 1,500 words isn’t long-form content. I’d advise to aim for over 2000 words, since 1,500 is (in my opinion) is the minimum. That way, you’ll have a competitive advantage with the extra cushion.
But why not go all in? Set a goal of 4,000 words for your long-form content.
A Recently Recognized Benefit
The benefits of long-form content in the digital sphere have only recently begun to gain recognition. Believe it or not, it was long believed that digital long-form content was a bad idea:
When readers started moving to the internet, media analysts thought long-form journalism was in trouble. Attention spans were going to shrivel. Readers wanted short, they wanted snappy, they wanted 140 characters and not much more (though a listicle on the side couldn’t hurt). Who would want to scroll through an 8,000-word article on an iPhone screen?Naomi Sharp
Many are now realizing that the inevitable “death” of long-form content was greatly exaggerated, and digital marketers are discovering that long-form content is extremely valuable for both users and search engines alike.
The SEO Benefit
The exact algorithm that Google uses to determine which pages should go straight to the top of the SERPs for a given query is, of course a mystery
However, curious engineers can tinker and experiment — as much as the search engines will allow them — to gain some insight about what ranks well.
Long-Form Content Ranks Very Well
Back in 2012, serpIQ conducted a study involving more than 20,000 keywords. The results showed that the average content length of each of the top 10 results was more than 2,000 words. The average number of words for the content in the #1 spot was 2,416. For the #10 spot, the average number of words was 2,032.
That evidence is fairly conclusive. If you want your articles to rank well, consider using long-form content.
Google Says So
The theory that long-form content benefits search engine optimization (SEO) is corroborated by a hint that’s been dropped on the Google Webmasters Central Blog. Pandu Nayak, technical staff member at Google and creator of the Panda algorithm update, posted the following:
Users often turn to Google to answer a quick question, but research suggests that up to 10% of users’ daily information needs involve learning about a broad topic. That’s why today we’re introducing new search results to help users find in-depth articles.
That’s a very suggestive hint that long-form content tends to rank well. Nayak also advised webmasters to use schema.org markup, authorship markup (the rich snippet for which has since disappeared from search results) and provide information about the company’s logo when producing long-form content as a way to further increase the likelihood of a good ranking.
Long-Form Content Garners More Backlinks, On Average
Not only do the search engines seem to intrinsically love long content, but you’ll find an additional SEO benefit from writing a couple of thousand words: more backlinks. Of course, those additional backlinks will help you rank with the SERPs, as well.
A study conducted by Moz shows a direct correlation between the length of the content and the number of backlinks pointing to it. It’s further evidence that long-form content is great for SEO.
Still, Only Death And Taxes Are Guaranteed
Before you trot back to your content management system with this newfound knowledge, thinking with certainty that if you speed-type 2,078 words about how to lose 50 pounds in six weeks you’re going to be in the #1 spot on Google’s search results, keep in mind that you’re not guaranteed to rank well just because you use long-form content.
The fact of the matter is that the search engine algorithms look at a lot of factors. I could, of course, go on about all the factors, but that is not really what this post is about.
Still, all else being equal, quality long-form content should increase the likelihood that you’ll rank for relevant terms. And that’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it?
