Various factors play a key role in your website’s SEO and overall ranking. But perhaps one aspect that can have an interesting impact on your site is long-form content. So what is long-form content? What does it do, and how does it benefit your site and SEO ranking? Keep reading to learn more about long-form content and SEO.
What Is Long-Form Content?
As the name suggests, long-form content is lengthy web content, and it provides readers with in-depth knowledge and details that pique their interest in a certain topic. In contrast, short-form content provides readers with quick, less detailed information. Long-form also allows them to research complex ideas and information while presenting the details in an easily digestible manner. The nature of this content makes it incredibly valuable to consumers, and it also makes it easier to share with others, which increases your site’s visibility and interactions.
Why Should You Include Long-Form Content on Your Site?
As mentioned above, long-form content can benefit your site, including your SEO rankings. Aside from providing different demographics with rich, detailed information, this kind of content allows search engine crawlers to better index and categorize your page (and its content) on the internet — and to pull it to the surface when internet users type in a query.
Because long-form content provides high-quality information with a more detailed background, search engines such as Google tend to prioritize pages that feature it. The higher priority or more valuable the page is, the higher it ranks on a search engines results page (SERP) — which means more visibility for your website and more potential conversions over time.
Long-form content also allows you to expand your website by creating a series of related information. For example, if you manage a business in the medical field, you can post long-form articles that talk about seasonally relevant information, such as the ins and outs of allergies in the springtime. If you don’t cover everything in the original article, you can turn that topic into a series and continue posting detailed information about this niche subject.
Using evergreen content also allows you to stay pertinent online because it is constantly relevant to the public. Fortunately, you can update long-form, evergreen content as necessity dictates, and these minor updates (like citing updated research in a medical article) keep your messaging and your site consistently relevant on a SERP.
SEO Factors
Another component that directly impacts your site or page rankings is the number of backlinks long-form content produces. You (or content creators working on your behalf, which we discuss below) must do adequate research to craft and post a piece of authoritative, high-quality content. As that piece garners more visibility and as site visitors share the content more, the more others will link to it on their own sites. These backlinks to your site essentially show search engines that your page is valuable and aids in SEO.
Keyword utilization also plays a large role in long-form content and SEO ranking. The ultimate goal of SEO is to help generate organic traffic to a website or web page, then to help improve conversions. Long-form content provides ample space to place keywords strategically within an article. The more relevant the keywords, the easier bots can crawl the page and pull it to a results page — and the more visible the page remains to current and new visitors.
Likewise, you can target keywords within your unique topic, providing greater opportunity to reach a wider audience and keep ranking higher on a SERP.
How Can Content Experts Effectively Craft Long-Form Content?
Creating long-form content can seem tricky and intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Typically, you’ll choose an audience to address and then craft an article with easy-to-digest paragraphs and sentences. You’ll also keep an organized focus on the main topic, use supporting data and resources, and add visual content (including images or comprehensible charts) throughout the article.
However, if you don’t have time to handle this work on your own — or you’d prefer an expert to help you manage this process — digital marketing professionals can help you craft your desired content so you can accomplish your long-form content goals. Working with content experts to write long-form content even helps you achieve your business objectives outside of SEO.
For instance, if you hope people in your area will see you as the authority and go-to business for your specific services, your team of content experts can help you craft content that aids in this goal. That could be through determining how long the content will be, what specifically the content emphasizes, and where you should post the content outside of your website (such as on social media).
Whatever your website goals may be, trust Boostability to help you meet them — and to provide you with the professional resources you need to enhance SEO and fully take advantage of this aspect of digital marketing. Learn more about how our partner SEO services can help you grow your business today!
