If you run a blog and want to see it grow to its full potential, then you need to make sure you’re writing the right types of content. Success doesn’t just come down to what you’re writing about – sometimes, the style of writing can be just as important as the content itself.
One of the best ways to boost your blog’s growth is to produce content of a variety of lengths. Writing long-form content has plenty of benefits and is a great way to improve the quality and success of your blog!
But what exactly is long-form content, and why is it so important to use it?
If you want to produce long-form content but don’t know where to even start, don’t worry! We’ve done all the work for you, and gathered everything you need to know about long-form writing into this handy guide!
Here, we’ll take a look at what long-form content actually is, some examples of how you can use long-form content, and why it’s so important to use long-form content in the first place. So let’s not waste any time: let’s get started!
What Is Long-Form Content? A Brief Breakdown
First things first – what actually is long-form content? It’s actually pretty simple.
Long-form content is defined as a piece of content that is between 1000 and 7500 words in length. This can include anything from a long blog post to a product review to a professional white paper.
From a business and blogging perspective, long-form content can play several important roles. Writing long-form content is more informative, engaging, and comprehensive than short-form content, which is great for conveying important information and building up your personal brand.
For example, writing an in-depth guide to something like a recipe means that you can be clearer with your instructions and create a better experience for the reader; meanwhile, using long-form for product reviews lets you include more personal opinions and experiences to give you a better connection with the reader.
We’ll take a closer look at why you should be using long-form content later, but it should be pretty clear already that it can be a great tool to use!
While long-form content can range anywhere from 1000 to 7500 words long, most long-form blog content tends to stay around the 2000 word range.
This is a decent amount of length that lets you be informative about the subject you’re writing about, but is short enough that it will keep the reader engaged throughout.
That’s not to say that longer content can’t be useful, however, and there’s definitely a place for content over 7000 words in length; in fact, some long-form content can exceed the 7500-word boundary!
Why Is Long-Form Content Important?
As we’ve already mentioned, long-form content can have a lot of benefits when it’s used properly. This style of writing can accomplish a lot of things that shorter pieces can’t, and is great for helping you grow your blog and brand.
Long-form content is good for a variety of reasons. Here are just a few examples of how writing long-form content can benefit your blog:
1. It Helps Your Blog Grow
The most important factors to expanding your blog and business online are engagement and SEO.
Engagement refers to how many people view your content and how long they view it for; essentially, the more time people spend on your blog, the better.
Long-form content means your readers spend more time on your blog, and interesting content will help keep readers engaged until the end.
This is why most long-form blog posts are generally around 2000 words long – this length means that readers will spend more time reading and are more likely to reach the end of the post.
The SEO aspect is a little more complicated. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, refers to how high your content ranks on search engines such as Google.
Many different things can influence SEO (including factors like keywords and links), but the main thing to know is that SEO generally favors long-form content over shorter writing.
Using long-form content will improve both your engagement and your SEO ranking, which is great for helping your blog grow and become more successful.
2. It Creates More Informative Content
Another benefit of using long-form content is that it makes your content more informative. This is great if you’re making an in-depth guide or product review, as it lets you get into more detail that readers will find helpful.
From a business standpoint, it can also help to clarify more complicated topics, such as with a white paper. Long-form content is far better for creating informative content in greater detail, as well as letting you give your writing a more personal touch.
3. It Establishes Your Brand
Branding is important, and long-form content is a great way to give your personal brand more authority.
This is partly down to things we’ve already covered – such as SEO ranking and engagement – but there are some other ways that long-form content creates a better brand identity.
For example, longer content gives you the chance to add some more personality to your writing.
This helps drive more engagement because it creates a better connection with the reader. It also gives your blog an identity that readers can identify with, which is important when you’re trying to grow your brand.
4. It Lets You Build Links
You can fit a lot more in long-form content than short-form, and this includes links to other sites and content. Links are handy for a couple of reasons, the biggest being networking and SEO ranking.
We’ve already mentioned that SEOs value links in a piece of content, so this is already a benefit in itself. However, building links with other sites is also a great way to build your presence online.
Providing links to other businesses in your content helps you build relationships with them. This can lead to partnerships and referral opportunities, both of which can be massively positive for your blog’s growth.
The same is also true the other way around. When you have links to other businesses and blogs in your content, they’re more likely to link back to you in return! Backlinking is a great tool to use, and helps you build a network of links leading to your own content.
5. It Makes Your Blog More Interesting
Finally, long-form content is often just more interesting! Too much short-form content can make your blog boring and hard to engage with. Adding long-form content is a great way to change things up on your blog to keep it fresh and interesting.
Long-form content lets you explore topics in more detail and gives you the freedom to get in-depth with engaging subjects.
This is important if your brand revolves around a specific topic, and helps to establish your blog as interesting and knowledgeable about your area.
Long-Form vs Short-Form: The Pros And Cons
Just because long-form content is great for your blog, it doesn’t mean that it’s all you should be using. To get the best out of your blog, you should be using a mix of long-form and short-form content without leaning too heavily on either.
These two styles of writing each have their place, and using a combination of long-form and short-form content is the best way for your blog to grow.
So while long-form content is a useful tool with many applications and benefits, mixing things up is the best way to improve your blog’s success.
To help you understand what each type of content is good for, here’s a quick rundown of the pros and cons of long-form content and short-form content.
Long-Form Content: Pros and Cons
Pros
More informative, engaging, and in-depth content lets you establish yourself as an authority on a subject
This content is ranked higher by SEOs, helping your blog reach a wider audience
You can grow your brand through networking, backlinks, and building up a personal brand within your content
Long-form content encourages discussion and commentary on your blog
Cons
If your content is too long then you can lose the reader’s attention
Too much long-form content can reduce your blog’s engagement
Short-Form Content: Pros and Cons
Pros
Short and concise content for conveying simple information quickly
Keeps the reader’s attention more easily and boosts engagement
Mixing them with long-form content helps break up and improve the flow of your blog
Cons
You can’t explore any topics in-depth
Short content feels impersonal and there isn’t much opportunity to integrate your brand
Limits the growth of your blog and brand as they aren’t favored by SEO
Short-form and long-form content are both incredibly valuable and serve their own important purposes in a blog. Relying too much on either type of content can hinder your blog’s growth and engagement, while using a balanced mix will massively boost your blog’s success.
It’s important to use long-form content correctly if you want to get the most out of your blog, but by creating long-form content you’ll be giving your blog the best chance at success.
Examples Of Long-Form Content
So now that we’ve covered what long-form content actually is as well as the ways it can be beneficial to your blog and/or business, let’s take a look at some examples of long-form content.
Long-form content can come in many different varieties that cover a range of purposes, from comprehensive reviews to step-by-step guides. Here are a few examples of long-form content to give you an idea of what sort of content you can produce for your blog.
Blog Posts
These are the most important parts of any blog. While blog posts are typically known for being on the shorter side of content, long blog posts are a great way to convey large pieces of information and build your brand.
There are many ways a long-form blog post can be beneficial. First and foremost is the SEO side of things. Longer content boosts your SEO ranking, and longer blog posts offer plenty of opportunities to include links and keywords.
On top of simply improving your blog’s SEO rank, using links and keywords in longer blog posts helps to build a network with other blogs and businesses.
Through referrals and backlinking, long-form blog posts can help your blog widen its audience – and the more people who engage with your blog, the more successful it will become!
There’s also the added benefit of letting you make your blog posts more personal. Brand identity is a key part of expanding your business, so by establishing your brand through these long-form blog posts you’ll be able to create a much larger online presence.
In-Depth Reviews
One of the best ways to use long-form content is through in-depth reviews. From product reviews to more niche topics (depending on your business), long-form content lets you go into much more detail when writing a review.
This is handy for a couple of reasons. First off, a more detailed review is far more comprehensive. This lets you cover everything about what you’re reviewing so your readers get the best understanding.
Additionally, a better level of detail helps build trust with the reader. If it sounds like you know what you’re talking about, readers are more likely to engage with your content and even refer it to others. This is much easier to do with long-form reviews, as short-form content doesn’t let you include nearly as much detail.
Informational Guides
Informational guides benefit from long-form in the same ways as reviews do. The longer format allows you to go far more in-depth with your content.
This is particularly useful in something like a step-by-step guide, where having more words to use lets you provide more detail for each step; this doesn’t just make it easier to understand, but it also gives the reader a better experience.
Long-form informational content is also far better for complex topics where a greater level of detail is necessary.
An example of this is professional white papers; these are reports or guides that are used to clearly explain a complicated subject and help a reader’s understanding of the topic.
Having more words to do this makes it far easier to convey this information. As a result, white papers such as government bills or business policies will use long-form to effectively communicate with the reader.
Annual Roundups
Another good use for long-form content is an annual report or a business roundup. This is also a great example of how long-form is often context-specific and shouldn’t necessarily be used all the time.
Using long-form for an annual review lets you make a comprehensive showcase of your blog’s growth and success, as well as individual reports for different areas that you want to cover. This is important if you’re covering a year’s worth of content, as it lets you get into more detail about your blog and business.
Case Studies
Case studies are a great opportunity to show off your work and build up your brand’s image. They are an in-depth look at a particular example of your blog/business’s success, typically focusing on the problem and solution in each case.
Case studies can cover a variety of different things, from your partners to your customers, and even just to a specific problem your business has had to overcome.
This is your chance to showcase your brand’s strengths and successes, and a long-form format gives you much more room to cover everything about your business and blog.
These are just a few examples of how you can implement long-form content into your blog. No matter what your business covers, there is a style of long-form content that you can benefit from.
How To Structure Long-Form Content
Writing high-quality long-form content doesn’t come down to writing more. Using the right structure is essential for keeping your content engaging and streamlined.
The structure of your content will be different depending on the subject you’re writing about, the style of content you’re producing, and the overall length of your content.
For instance, a product review isn’t going to have the same structure as an annual review. However, there are still some general guidelines you should stick to in order to get the best results.
The introduction to your content should be clear and concise, and just be there to introduce your reader to the topic your content is going to cover.
The length of your intro can scale with the length of your content and the topic you’re writing about, but in general it should stay as short as you can make it.
The same idea applies to your conclusion; this should just recap the topic and content you’ve covered concisely to tie everything together.
The main body of your content is the most important thing. From a reader’s perspective, your content needs to be engaging and easy to read. This means that you should avoid big blocks of text because this can easily make a reader lose focus.
Instead, try to stick to shorter, more manageable paragraphs. You should also aim to divide the size of each section evenly so there aren’t big unwieldy blocks of text.
This makes your content much easier to digest and means that you’ll get more reader engagement.
Long-form articles also benefit from visuals – these help to break up the text to keep your reader engaged, and can provide helpful tools for understanding more complicated topics.
For example, an in-depth ‘how to’ guide can benefit from some diagrams or visual instructions.
The most important thing to remember, however, is to make your content approachable. Long-form content can be intimidating at times, but making organized, clear, and conversational content will help your readers to engage with the content more easily.
Making the right content for your blog is important, and long-form content is a great way to help your blog grow.
Regardless of the type of content you produce, making it accessible to your readers is the biggest step towards building a strong online presence and boosting your blog’s growth!
Final Thoughts
So there you have it! Now you know all there is to know about what long-form content is, how it can be used, and why you need to start including long-form content on your blog straight away!
There are plenty of benefits to using long-form content, from improving your blog’s SEO ranking and engagement to helping you establish your brand and online presence.
By implementing long-form content in your blog, you’ll be giving it the best chance to grow and improve!
Now that you know the ins and outs of long-form content, you have all the tools you need to boost your blog’s growth and reach the widest audience possible.
Just use the things you’ve learned in this guide and you’ll be on your way to success in no time.
Now all you need to do is put your newfound knowledge into practice. Good luck!
Hi, my name is Ollie Wilson and I have been a keen blogger since I was a young teen. I was growing up with the rise of YouTube and bloggers, and the people I followed influenced me to start blogging. They were making a lot of money from their blogs, and I wanted that too!
I’ve now had this blog for almost a decade. In that time, I’ve learned how to monetize it to start earning money, which servers are the best for each blog type, and how to optimize your domains.
Now it’s time to share my knowledge and help others create their own successful blogs, just like I wish I had when I was creating my first blog. It can be daunting when you first set up your site, but with my advice, you’ll have a great looking blog in no time. Let’s get started!
