Is Short Or Long Form Better For Your Business? Ideal Content Creation Length

Are you a business owner, marketer, SEO expert, multimedia consultant, or a content creator trying to rank higher on search engines? There is some debate as to whether to use short or long form to attract new followers and rank better in Google’s algorithm. While the short form is trendy and easier to read, long-form ranks better in SEO, is informative, and more engaging. If your budget is limited, here are a few things you need to know before deciding on a strategy.

What Is Long Form?

The long form is content that is more than 1000 words in length. They typically are educational, how-to, and insightful. Examples include e-books, whitepapers, and informative articles.

What Is Short Form?

The short form is anything between 100 and 1000 words used to drive traffic, brand, and engage. Short form includes infographics, blogs, social media posts, or mobile-friendly video.

1. Short Form Is Great For Branding But Consumers Share Long Form More

Consumers love short branding messages such as social media posts and viral videos. When it comes down to value, consumers share more long form because it has information that people think others need to know. BuzzSumo research found that consumers think articles with research, facts, and statistics have more worth to viewers.

2. Long Form Increases Conversion Rates And Ranking

If you are looking for a good reason to add long-form content to your marketing strategy, you will think Quicksprout research insightful as they found that longer content helps businesses increase conversion rates and search engine ranking. Well-written content allows you to inform consumers about products or services in greater detail which is what you want to do when convincing them of quality product features or brand awareness.

 3. Long Form Is Better For SEO Integration

SEO integration is vital since you need to speak the same language as those who are searching for your products or services. You need to be strategic in where you place your keywords (i.e. title, sub-title, and paragraphs) and the word count you do it in. If you try to use too many keywords in short-form, Google will assume you are keyword stuffing. If you integrate the same number of keywords in long-form, it appears more natural.

 4. You Earn Qualified Backlinks

If you want to integrate a backlink strategy into your marketing campaign, long-form content is the way to do it as it helps your business rank better. Longer content usually contains useful information which Google wants to provide its users in one link. Why read five short-form articles when one long-form article contains the same information? Backlinks help your ranking because others find it to be valuable to their readers. It enhances your reputation and sends a nod to search engines that your site is credible.

5. Google’s Algorithm Rewards Long Form Content

Long-form content has higher search engine rankings than short-form because companies like Google are after quality rather than quantity. Of course, Google does not rely on word count alone as more than 200 factors go into its algorithm. They do believe that longer content is more informational as there is room to expand on ideas rather than introduce short topics that rarely have the space to go into great detail. A SerpIQ study also found that the top 10 SERP results have more than 2,000 words. There is much room for the integration of keywords, imagery, and well-written content to drive its success.

Of course, the key to it all is well-written, quality content that is comprehensive, has compelling titles, descriptive metadata, and SEO keywords that boost organic traffic. If you would like to learn more about how Frogman Media Group will help you produce short and long-form content, receive backlinks, enhance social media engagement, and earn more shares, contact us here.