Why You Should Create Long-Form Content (AND How to Do It)
Content creation is a significant element of the digital marketing strategy. Since competition is immense, marketers are trying hard to produce high-quality content. But there is no fixed formula for generating content that converts visitors into final consumers.
Logically, content that can engage visitors for a longer duration is ideal. However, the process is not as easy as it sounds. Besides textual content, we need to incorporate visuals, examples, and research in our content pieces. And doing all of this is challenging in a shorter blog article.
That is why detailed articles are always important. Unfortunately, many online business owners are still unaware of the high worth of long-form content. If you are one of them, keep reading to find out why comprehensive content is mandatory to survive in this fast-growing online arena.
Reasons to Create Long-Form Content
Creating a lengthy write-up requires time, effort, and dedication. But since the benefits are tremendous, all top-notch brands are adopting this strategy. A few reasons to create this form of content include:
1. Enhanced Brand Exposure
Searching multiple websites and gathering bits of information is a hassle. People would rather get information from one source. And when they find something like this, they always appreciate it. Not just this, they prefer sharing it with friends and family.
Sharing and tagging friends to read valuable content on social media is common. Whether it is Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or any other platform, we all know the potential of these connectivity hubs.
Once the post becomes viral, your brand can get immense exposure in no time.
2. High Level of Consumer Trust
When searching for a reliable company for any service, we mostly trust the one that appears more knowledgeable. The same is the case with consumers. Thankfully, descriptive content allows us to showcase our familiarity with the specific field.
For instance, technological advancement is booming. Therefore, every other industry needs to stay updated with the latest relevant devices available in the market. We can share details about the latest methodologies and advancements through long-form content.
These informative write-ups will display how your team is adopting the latest trends. Apart from it, they will learn how to resolve their queries with the latest options. Thus, they are more likely to develop trust.
3. Better Search Engine Ranking
Higher engagement and increasing brand exposure results in more traffic to our website. Besides this, descriptive content looks informative, and many high authority sites will accept it as a guest post. We also get more opportunities to add links to other sites, which is how we get a backlink.
Thus, long-form content is great for link building and increasing site traffic. Both of these factors contribute positively to increasing our search engine ranking.
After going through the abovementioned factors, you must be wondering how to create this detailed content…
Steps to Generating Long Form Content
The following steps help create explicit content with ease:
1. Pick a Relevant Topic
Spend ample time finding a topic that can spark interest among the audience. For this, you need to see who is your target audience and what are their pain points. Do not forget to “spy” on your competitors to understand which topics they are using.
Besides this, evaluate consumer queries to decide which topic they will find interesting. And see their social media activities to determine their strategies. Tools like Ideas Generator, Google Trends, Answer the Public, and many others are also present to assist marketers in choosing the right topic.
2. Do Extensive Research
Your next step is to gather complete information about the chosen topic. Thankfully, the internet world provides us with plenty of knowledge. But we can never rely on every other source. Trust only reliable and authentic sites for collecting information.
Additionally, read Google books, journal articles, and research papers to broaden your research. You can also watch YouTube videos or interact with relevant industry influencers to get the latest information.
The process is time-taking, but you can only deliver the right information when you have a firm grip on the topic. Therefore, always work hard for this step.
3. Create an Outline
You must have gathered a lot of material for the topic. But you have no clue where to start. No need to worry, as an outline always help us in taking a systematic approach to the content.
Start from the background, then discuss the main topic and, in the end, conclude with suggestions. But you need to add many points, subheadings, and examples in each section. An outline will help you do all that.
To create an outline, write all the headings with a short description of what you will cover in this part. Since it isn’t your final work, you can make several changes after reading the outline repeatedly.
4. Write the Main Content
Once you think the outline is perfect for the topic, start writing the main content. Here are some ways to help you create an impressive writing piece:
- Try to write in plain and simple language.
- Use small sentences and avoid passive voice.
- Think from the reader’s point of view and then give easy-to-understand examples.
- Do not write the same thing repeatedly.
5. Add Visual Content
Visuals will add an exciting feel to your text-heavy article. Images also help to boost your website conversions. It’s best to use real and custom images, but if you are short on budget, you can always use stock photos. Many websites provide affordable and even free images with just a click.
However, some photos available in a stock photo library are overused or generic. Fortunately, there are many ways to upgrade the visual content and make it more relevant to your brand.
You can add videos, screenshots, and infographics as well. Again, consider your audience and decide which visuals they will find more appealing.
6. Proofread and Format
You will take a sigh of relief after doing all the hard work. In this last step, you just polish your content and remove all possible errors. Read it at least thrice and use tools like Grammarly, Paper Rater, Slick Write, and others to assist you.
Getting a fresh pair of eyes and having someone else read your article is also a good idea. This can help you identify sentences that don’t make sense and minimize errors.
Final Words
Undeniably, long-form content is mandatory to attract potential clients and maintain lasting relations with the present ones. It is also essential for boosting our SEO rank. And creating lengthy write-ups is not tricky.
We must pick a good topic, research, create an outline, write the content, and add visuals. Lastly, we need to proofread our work so that readers won’t find any grammatical errors and typos.
All this hard work will produce informative and valuable content that can impress your clients in no time.
Written for SEOcycle by Guest Contributor Ivy Attie