Are you tired of low traffic and high bounce rates on your website? If yes, then it’s time for you to step out of the safe zone of short-form content and use long-form content to take your website to the next level.
There’s no denying that many people prefer quick, short reads that provide high value. However, long-form content should also be part of your content marketing strategy because if your marketing efforts are focused only towards short-form content, you are missing out on a great opportunity to reach a wide audience, bring in traffic, and increase conversion rate.
So, what is long-form content anyway? And how can it help you increase online engagement and make people stay on your web page? Let’s find out!
What Is Long-Form Content?
Long-form is your next-generation content. Gone are the days when “short-and-sweet” was a rule of the thumb for creating online content. Today, audiences demand content that provides maximum value in one place. So, if you want to make a mark in the ever-competitive market of today, it is essential to bring long-form content in the mix.
Go Long or Go Home!
Long-form content generally includes blogs and articles with the word count ranging from 1,200 to 3,000 words. While there’s no denying that this form of content can be a real game-changer for your business, first, you need to learn how to make the switch from short-form content to the 50-yard bomb posts.
Why Go With Long-Form Content?
There are multiple benefits of incorporating long-form content in your marketing strategy. Let’s take a look at some of the most prominent ones.
- More Time on the Website: Rest assured that if the content on your blog or website is highly engaging and provides high value to the readers, they will not go anywhere without reading till the very end. It may come as a surprise to you but the engagement is highest for content with around 7-minutes reading time!
- Good SEO Practice: While incorporating relevant keywords and links in the content is a good practice, it is important to understand that overloading your content with keywords or internal and external links haphazardly will do more harm than good. You need to incorporate them smartly and appropriately for maximum benefit. For this reason, it’s not always easy to optimize short-form content through keywords. Long-form content takes care of this problem as it provides the perfect opportunity to incorporate various keywords in the content.
- High Reader Loyalty: Keeping your readers engaged for longer periods will eventually translate into higher reader loyalty. In other words, long-form content ensures your readers keep coming back to your website. This is mainly because readers need something substantial to remember a blog. Spending one or two minutes on your website may not be enough to build reader loyalty. However, spending six or seven minutes on your site will ensure that they remember you for a long time.
- Build Your Personal Brand: When you are trying to build a personal brand online, it is best to opt for long-form content. The reason is that long-form content bolsters authority better than short-form content. Moreover, it gives you a chance to showcase your personal style, which helps you build a personal brand.
How Long-Form Content Helps You Achieve Your Business Goals
Now that you know why long-form content should be a major part of your content marketing strategy, let’s take a look at how it works to help you achieve your business goals.
Creating Long-Form Blog Content
If you are intimidated by the idea of incorporating long-form content, you are not alone. Creating long-form content can seem like a daunting task, especially if you are doing it for the first time. However, once you get the hang of it, you’ll find out for yourself why this type of content is making waves in the world of content marketing.
Let’s take a look at some basic tips for creating long-form content that will keep your readers hooked for a long time.
- Make an Editorial Calendar: Making an editorial calendar is essential to stay on track. You don’t want to jump into creating long-form content unprepared. So, the best approach is to make an editorial calendar that aligns with your schedule to make sure you know what you are doing and when. It will help you stay committed to writing amazing and high-quality long-form blogs.
- In-depth Research: Keep in mind that while you are no longer restricted by the word count of your blog, it doesn’t mean that you can include fluff or irrelevant stuff. Your main goal is still the same — to provide maximum value to the readers. So, what can you do to reach the higher word count without adding fluff? The answer is in-depth research!
Your content needs to be well-researched in order to increase engagement. Don’t forget that readers are smart and generally great at identifying poor research from a mile. So, don’t take your chances and take the time to do proper research before writing a long-form blog. Remember, it may take you longer to research and write a 2000-word blog but it is worth it.
- Keyword Research: While researching content will help you provide high value to readers, researching keywords will allow you to optimize your content to rank higher in the search engine ranking. This is why it is absolutely essential to take the time to research keywords before you start working on your long-form content piece. Various keyword research tools and applications are available that can help you identify the best relevant keywords for your content. It is up to you to incorporate them smartly.
- Organize your Content: Content organization is one of the most important factors that you must keep in mind while creating long-form blogs. The way you organize your content helps your readers decide whether they want to read until the end or are going to try a different website. Most readers make up their mind by taking a single look at the organization of the content.
This is why it is important to ensure that the blog is organized neatly with various heading and subheadings. It is also a good idea to include images, infographics, gifs or other forms of content in the blog post to keep your readers engrossed. Keep in mind that it is okay to get creative with the organization of your content. It is your chance to showcase your personal style. However, whatever you do, just make sure the final blog post is not all over the place.
- Promote your Content: Promoting your long-form content can make a huge difference on its reach as well as how long it manages to keep the readers on your website or blog. Come up with a marketing strategy to promote your content online. You can find multiple tools to do that or you can hire a content specialist to make sure your content doesn’t get lost in the sea of information on the internet.
- Hire a Content Specialist: If you think your content marketing campaign needs a push, do not wait to hire a content specialist. A content specialist will not only help you come up with engaging long-form content, but they will also make sure that you utilize it correctly.
It is important to understand that creating highly-engaging, high-value long-form blogs is only one part of the puzzle. As a marketer, you will have hundreds of other things to focus on. Therefore, if creating the content feels like a bit too much, you can always rely on content writing services to provide you with top-notch long-form content for your blog or website.
Repurpose Long-Form Content
One of the most wonderful things about creating a long-form content portfolio is that it gives a lot of high value, ready-for-formatting content, which you can repurpose in multiple ways. For instance, if you have already built an impressive portfolio of long-form content, it may be a good idea to use that content to compile an e-book.
It is important to understand that e-books are a type of long-form content themselves. They help you build credibility and authority in your domain. Plus, repurposing your long-form content to create ebooks gives you another way to generate leads. It can help you build a strong email list that you can use for email marketing.
As you may have guessed, the best part about repurposing long-form content is that it requires minimal efforts — no researching and you can skip the struggling of coming up with the right words. The content is already there. All you need to do is to tweak it a bit to meet your needs and requirements. Let’s take a look at a few ways you can repurpose long-form content.
- Compile and edit your long-form content to create engaging e-books.
- Use the data you have to create case studies.
- Convert your content into highly engaging podcasts to reach people who enjoy listening rather than reading content online.
- You can update your old blog posts to provide the latest information to your audience instead of writing new content every time.
- Turn your content into highly engaging videos for people who prefer to watch videos rather than read blogs.
- Compile valuable content to offer online courses to your audience.
- Break down large blog posts into multiple small pieces to start a series of short blogs.
These are some ways to repurpose long-form content and make the most of it. While you have multiple options to tailor your content, repurposing long-form content into ebooks remains the topic trend. You can compile multiple blogs, tweak the content, and fill in the gaps to develop a high-value e-book.
If the idea of writing (or repurposing) an e-book might seem like a lot to you, keep in mind that you can always hire a professional content specialist to create ebooks for you by using your long-form content.
Evolve into a long-form writer by Go Long
Download Go Long: Long-Form Blogging Tips eBook to experience long-form writing to a new degree. This eBook will give you all the reasons and steps to creating the best blog content.
Conclusion
It won’t be a stretch to say that long-form blogs are the next-generation of content. Long-form content is the proven winner when it comes to increasing engagement on the website and building reader loyalty. It is now impossible to deny the significance of long-form content in the world of online marketing, especially when it is coupled with the power of repurposing. Therefore, it is time you bring this kind of content in the mix and use it to gain maximum advantage and gain a competitive edge in the market over your competitors.
However, the content that you produce needs to be of high quality and must be aimed towards providing value to the readers. Otherwise, you cannot expect to enjoy all the benefits and advantages of long-form content. For this reason, if you have decided to go head-to-head with this form of content, it is advisable to hire content writers or content specialists to ensure success.
Okay, so after understanding the importance of incorporating long-form data, now you don’t have to hesitate investing time, effort, or money to make the most of long-form blog content. The statistics are in favor of long-form content, so you can rest assured that investing in it will only lead you to success in the long term. Plus, it provides more value to your readers –truly a win-win situation for everyone!
