October 2016, was a remarkable month when global mobile and tablet internet users exceeded desktop internet users for the first time. We have been talking about the importance of optimising your website for small screen users, and we have witnessed websites evolving from multi-page designs to one-page designs and from one-page designs to animations/grid-based designs. However, do you know how content has changed throughout this journey?
While it may seem that the length of content should have been reduced to cater to small screen audiences, it is actually the other way round.
Short articles with a keyword after every two words were sufficient to optimise your posts. Today, not only search engine algorithms, but your audiences have also become smarter and more tech savvy. Online readers now require detailed and high quality articles with well-researched points and/or expert opinions. It has already been proven that longer posts have better social media engagement.
Long-form or longer articles are often perceived as qualitative and more credible. An article of 4000 words can help you generate good traffic, and bring your website to the top of Google and other search engines.
Hence, benefits of writing longer content include:
Improved Position on SERPs
In 2013, Google launched ‘The Hummingbird’; a new algorithm to make sure that visitors land on high quality content pages. The main purpose was to identify the needs of individuals without using descriptions with keywords and phrases. Longer content allows Google to compare your keywords with trending ideas in the industry, and ensure that search results are based on the needs of users. Google optimises content by splitting keywords into various words and phrases. However, the importance of incorporating keywords into your content has not been lost, especially when it comes to long-tail keywords. Longer content allows you to use different keywords in your content, which in turn affords you a better ranking on SERPs.
Improved Social Engagement
After search engines, social media is the most important platform for attracting new visitors. When you share 4000+ word articles on social media platforms, people already believe that your content will be well-researched. With longer posts, marketers have more keywords which can be used to optimise your page/website. If you have established a noteworthy presence on different social media platforms, you can easily engage audiences.
Is Length the New Trend?
No! Content has always been the ‘king’ in online marketing. Now, high quality content that meets the needs of visitors is the new king. Google, the most popular search engine, loves longer articles, as it is easily scanned by crawlers. Hence, longer articles allow Google to deliver valuable content to users, while improving its brand reputation.
Elements You Can’t Miss in Your 4000+ Word Articles
As mentioned before, quality content is the new king. You need to compose engaging, well-researched and high quality content to ensure that articles are enjoyable and contain valuable information. However, writing 4000+ words can be a daunting task. For this, you can outsource your content to professional copywriters.
Following are the elements that you should not miss in longer, 4000+ word articles.
B2B Research
We need to focus on two types of research for content creation, including research for the article and researching the market to find out what influencers are talking about. B2B research is essential for staying ahead in the market, and ensuring that your content is up-to-date. Reading these extensive research tips will help you to get a better insight into your customers.
Keywords and SEO
Serp IQ conducted a research study involving 20,000 keywords in 2012. It concluded that the top 10 optimised posts contained an average of 2,032 words. Additionally, it was found that posts which had more than 4000 words were ranked the highest. Choose industry and subject-specific long and short-tail keywords, but avoid too many keywords in your content. Since it is a 4000+ word article, you can optimise your post using many keywords without exceeding Google’s ideal 1% keyword density limit.
Backlinks
Make sure that you cite information taken from other articles and blogs. Ideally, you should always include information from credible sources and hyperlink them with the relevant anchor text. Avoid hyperlinking keywords, especially if the keywords are not related to the information provided in the source, as this practice can get your page or entire website blacklisted on Google. In 4000+ word articles, you can include maximum research to make the content informative.
Optimisation is the key to generating more traffic; however, it is necessary to track the different sources of traffic for your website. Use Google Analytics and other such tools to track visitor data.