Is Long-Form Content Making a Comeback?
When I started my copywriting business 11 years ago, online business was a lot different. People paid writers pennies to write crap content that had keywords stuffed into it. That worked for awhile — until Big G got hip to what was going on.
Since then, content has been quality first, keywords second — which is a change I totally believe in. I think it's important for content to cover topics thoroughly and leave readers with some actionable takeaways. The more your readers value your content, the higher the Google Gods decide to rank it within the serps. Easy enough.
But lately, I've had an influx of work coming in from people who want SEO articles that are 2,000 to 3,000 workds long. And this work isn't coming from the clients who keep me on retainers. It's all new people. They want long-form articles on things like prescription medications and DNA testing.
This got me wondering if things in the affiliate marketing world are changing drastically? I know the articles landing top spots in Google's SERPs average around 1,980 words.
Now, I'm all for cornerstone content. I love writing it because you go into major detail on the topic and from that one article, you can easily get an entrie series of articles by branching off on things mentioned in different sections.
I always advice my clients to have at least one cornerstone piece published per month, but ideally, I think the to do a cornerstone piece once a week. Then, fill in the gaps with shorter pieces about different aspects in the longer article — to dig even deeper.
I'm wondering though, what are your thoughts around this? Is this type of content change affecting you and how area you handling it?
Look forward to chattting!
E
Recent Comments
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Hey Emily.
Interesting topic to bring up. I think times are changing for sure. Many members here talk about how they get success with longer content. 2 - 3,000 words.
Then you also have suggestions to do best of posts at 5,000 words which is achievable. (10 products x 500 words). Site health here recommends 1,500.
For me personally, I strive for 2,000 - 2,500 words per post.
I think these are all great options. On average, pages that hit the first page in the SERPs have about 1,890 (I think) words that last I checked.
I think that long (cornerstone) cornerstone content is great, and you can actually break the long pieces into smaller topics for shorter blog posts, social media posts, etc...
What's been eating at me lately though (and this may be because my main business is copywriting) is that I'm seeing more and more clients come to me wanting 2,000-3,000 word articles and blog posts on topics that don't actually need that many words.
I tend to believe that you write until you cover the topic well. That way you have a piece that adds value to your readers. So if you have a topic that only requires 500 words, that's fine. But you need to also include detailed posts on your sites that are longer and cover topics in depth.
At least this is how I'm advising my clients currently. I was kind of wondering if those in the affiliate marketing world are doing the same. (Most of my clients are part of the coaching/online course creating space, but I have a few newer ones lately that I think are affiliate marketers (albeit ones that are slightly confused on how SEO and getting organic traffic actually works.)
Here's an interesting study for you. After analyzing 912 million blog posts, study shows that long-form content gets an average of 77.2% more backlinks than short articles.
Obviously, the study was for how to get backlinks. So if that is not your client's goal, then you may be able to prove why 2 - 3,000 words is not needed for every post. Maybe you can build longer posts with shorter posts for a different strategy mix.
https://backlinko.com/content-study
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People may or may not be moving towards longer content, it tends to fluctuate as years go by, but Google is moving towards shorter, more relevant content if anything