The attention of the modern consumer is fractured these days – they’re being bombarded by marketing materials from nearly every angle, all day every day. As a result, they’ve gotten really good at tuning out traditional advertising. This largely explains the rise of content marketing, particularly over the last ten years.
They don’t want to see an ad – they want you to give them something of value without necessarily expecting something in return. Techniques like blogging are how brands do it, and they’ve enjoyed a tremendous amount of success as a result.
Of course, is there such a thing as too much value? Some say that the average blog post should never exceed 500 words, and some insist even less than that. But long-form content still has a viable place in your campaign for a variety of reasons, all of which are worth exploring.
Long-From Content is here to Stay
One of the reasons why long-from content is so important to your marketing campaign is because it naturally displays a lot of the signals that Google is looking for when it comes to determining rankings.
Yes, it’s not every day that someone is going to have the time to sit there and digest a 1,000 word blog post or a 10,000 word white paper. But someone will – and rest assured that Google is going to notice. Some of the factors they look for when determining rankings include not only how in-depth a piece of content is, but the type of original research that went into it. Believe it or not, they look at the level of authorship involved and they even dive deep into things like sourcing.
Long-form content lends itself to all of these things – not so much with a 200 word blog post.
But even in a larger sense, it’s always crucial to provide as much information as possible related to whatever keywords it is that you’re targeting. Some topics don’t lend themselves to a longer piece, no – and that’s perfectly okay. There will be situations where you can absolutely get away with that shorter blog and still get across what you have to say.
But other times, to comprehensively cover a topic and give your thoughts, you’re going to need to go deeper. That’s what long-form content is all about.
Not only that, but don’t forget about why you’re investing in content marketing in the first place – to establish yourself as an authority to your target audience. You want them to be able to see that yours is a voice worth paying attention to – one that they can trust. By authoring high quality, longer pieces at least every once in a while, you go a long way towards accomplishing precisely that.
If you’re eager to learn more about why long-form content will always have a place in your larger marketing strategy, or if you have any additional questions that you’d like to discuss with a dedicated team of experts, please don’t delay – contact InfoStream today.
