Long Form Content | 6 Steps On How to Make Your Blog Rank Higher on Google
Creating long form blog content is the best way to ensure that your content ranks on the first page of Google. But, what is long form content, and how long does the content actually need to be?
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You are writing a blog and you want to make sure your blog ranks on the first page of Google to help your product or service get found. If you hustle to write an amazing article but no one can ever find it, what’s the point?
In addition to choosing a topic to write on, you have one important question to answer:
How long should my blog post be?
Key findings of the benefits of long-form content
Long-form blog posts are more likely to rank in search results, be shared on social, earn backlinks, and increase your domain authority.
Why is long-form content better?
Here is the thing:
Why is long form content better
A small percentage of articles and blog posts, roughly 1.3%, receive 75% of all social shares.
94% of content on the internet has zero social shares or backlinks. source
The fact is, longer content gets 72% more links than short-form content making it ideal to get new backlinks.
A HighRise optimization case study showed that long-form content also increased conversion rates by 37%.
According to Crazy Egg, when they switched to using a long-form content marketing strategy, which was 20 times the length of the shorter content they were used to creating, their conversion rate jumped up to 30%. source
This means a few people are doing things that most people are not. Why? Because it’s harder. But the results are well worth the effort.
What is the difference between long-form and short-form content?
Okay, okay, so how long and short are we talking here? The results are a bit mixed, but if we average them out we have a good idea of what should be considered long-form content and short-form content.
How long is short-form content?
Quartz editor Kevin Delaney reported that 500-800 word articles are the most common. Therefore if you can cover a topic in under 500 words, especially for social media you should do it. source
How long is long-form?
The average word count for results on the first page of Google is 1,447. Meanwhile, another study found that the SERP position of results on the first page of Google only included content with more than 2,000 words. This led sites like Backlinko.com to suggest publishing content with at least 1,800 words.
From the social sphere, Neil Patel conducted his own experiment by doing an audit of his 327 blog posts on Quick Sprout, a blog aimed to help digital marketers. Patel found that blog posts that were over 1,500 words were much more likely to be tweeted about and liked on Facebook.
How long is too long?
A simple rule of thumb is that if you can cover a topic in under 500 words then you should either use it as a sub-topic of a longer form blog post or use it as a social post. There is not a limit to how long your content is, as long as it is adding value and staying on topic.
It is important to not “fluff” your content just for the sake of making it long. Readers can tell when you are doing a filibuster for the sake of word count.
How do you write long-form content?
In-depth, high-quality content has a few key traits that are worth breaking down. These include:
long form content checklist
Compelling headlines.
Adding value right away.
Keeping people on the page.
Using relevant sources.
Compelling Visuals.
Proper formatting.
Improve RankBrain to get the most out of the Google Algorithm
How Google Rank brain works
According to Moz, RankBrain is part of Google’s core algorithm that uses machine learning to match content with search engine queries.
RankBrain is one of the three primary factors used in the Google Algorithm to help determine which content deserves to appear on the first page of Google. The primary way that RankBrain works is through measuring the click-through rate and the bounce rate, also known as dwell time.
Here are the steps to make your content more clickable and to keep people on it longer.
1. How do you write headlines for long-form content?
It’s important to remember that certain things work really well for social sharing, while certain things work really well for search findability and… certain things work well for both.
Use questions and lists in your headings and subheadings
How to write compelling headlines for long form content
People go to search engines to have their questions answered. Using the exact questions that people are asking in Google is a great way to make sure that your content is fully covering a topic and that it is actually helpful to the people you are writing for.
This also holds true with social. Headlines that end in a “?” get 23.3% more social shares than headlines that don’t end in a question mark.