Keep things short, punchy and concise. This is what Marketers have been consistently and relentlessly told to do for the past decade. No one wants to scroll for ages before they get to that juicy bit of blog content.
But perhaps it’s time to think again. Contrary to popular belief, studies have shown that people actually prefer intellectually stimulating long-form content. Even Facebook and Twitter are jumping on the “slow content movement” bandwagon - and here’s why...
It increases user engagement
Rather than creating fluff pieces that skim the facts, content marketers are now focused on the bigger picture. Long-form content has been shown to drastically increase engagement, and also generates 9x more leads than shorter blog posts. If you want secure your audience’s loyalty in 2016, you have to earn it. Articles that are 1,500 words or more build a stronger readership base because they encourage backlinks and organic traffic straight from Google. Provide a human element that creates immersive experiences for the reader to establish credibility. Ask rhetorical questions, prompt discourse and don’t just tell, but show investors how your particular service/product/content helps them. Lifehacker promotes stellar long-form content that generates over 25 million unique global visitors each month and encourages lively debates with hundreds of comments
Longer content casts a wider net
Content Marketing and key word optimisation used to go hand in hand - not anymore. Even traditional key word optimisation is taking on a longer approach. Thanks to Google’s latest search algorithms, keyword stuffing no longer works to increase direct traffic – and may actually push down your search ranking. Instead, marketers have begun seeing positive results by publishing long-form articles with more long-tail search words. Since over 70% of all search queries are now for long tail terms, it’s more important than ever to ensure your copy emphasizes key phrases and terms rather than individual words. Hubspot uses very specific long-tail key words in titles for feature articles, which attract readers from around the world.
The numbers don’t lie
Content marketers are always searching for new, innovative ways to convey their long-form information - and the next big thing is Big Data. Data journalism is quickly becoming one of the hottest trends in media that is kick-starting a completely new era of storytelling content. Using data analysis tools, marketers and reporters can uncover patterns and analyse trends that result in ground breaking, out-of-the-box stories. Newspapers and blogs are now starting to invest heavily in data-driven content. Transforming information into infographics, listicles, long-form articles, podcasts and videos can help to take your words viral instantly.
Travelling comparison site TripAdvisor effectively customizes their data using a number of Big Data technologies (including Apache Hadoop, Python and Hive) to continuously improve user experiences by providing fresh, up-to-date content.
Better content establishes authority
Instead of just stating the blunt facts, companies need to curate and analyse data – providing their own views on topics so consumers will see them as go-to experts. Once you build that authority, audiences won’t feel the need to go looking for answers on a bunch of other sites. Generating long-form content is proven to get more backlinks, boost your Google rankings and increase social media shares. Ronique Gibson, a professional blogger for Freshome, saw great results when she curated 773 lengthy posts in the space of a year. She quickly became one of the most sought-after experts in her field, accumulating more than 64,000 loyal subscribers.
At the end of the day, people don’t enjoy feeling “sold to”. If your copy becomes too pushy or ad-like, readers are likely to move on… quickly. The next time you’re putting content together for your website, spend a little more time sharing information, advice and anecdotes to get the biggest returns on your content marketing strategy.