The benefits of creating long-form content and how to do it right
Despite the rise in popularity of short-form content, long-form content will always have a seat at the table. Long-form content is any content that takes a longer amount of time to consume, such as written content over 1000 words, or longer webinars, podcasts, or video content.
While short-form content is helpful for rapidly migrating attention spans and serving up a slice of information in a small amount of time, long-form content provides an opportunity to take a necessary deep dive into the topics that matter most.
Examples of long-form content include:
eBooks
Blogs
White papers
Case studies
Tutorials
Guides
Video content
Podcasts
Webinars
When it comes to social media, long-form content has a place just as much as short-form content, especially on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, SubStack, and YouTube. Some platforms even have areas especially dedicated to long-form written content, such as LinkedIn newsletters and LinkedIn Articles.
The main reason why we create long-form content is to have the space and time to honor one important topic — to create content that is more informative, useful, and valuable than any short-form work of content can possibly be on the same topic. Long-form content doesn’t restrict us or force us to leave out important bits of information. It allows us to be as comprehensive as possible in how we create.
Long-form written content hosted on your blog has the potential to bring in new traffic to your website via SEO. Longer-form content presents more opportunities to include keywords and phrases that will help your blog get picked up by search engines, thereby increasing the discoverability of your brand or business.
When it comes to other forms of content, such as long-form YouTube videos, SEO can also come into play due to YouTube’s ability to surface videos in search engine results outside of the platform itself. Optimize your YouTube videos by adding an engaging thumbnail and captions, and including keywords in your description, title, and metadata.
Because long-form content allows you to go into more detail, it can be more powerful than short-form content, especially when it comes to persuasive content. Those who want to sell their products or services or grow their business will find that long-form content provides them the opportunity to explain in detail what problem their business is solving for their customers and why their products and services are so essential. Different forms of content speak to different people, so long-form content should be considered another tool in your toolkit when it comes to selling your products and explaining your value. Long-form content also gives plenty of opportunities to include calls to action within your content that will direct your audience to wherever you desire, such as your website, a particular product listing, or a form in which to enter their contact information.
If your long-form content is evergreen, it will continue to be relevant and valuable over a long period of time. While evergreen content of any length is great, evergreen long-form content is especially valuable due to its detailed nature and will continue to be useful when it comes to email marketing or onboarding communications, customer support interactions, or sharing over social media for many years to come.
The topic you choose for your long-form content should be intricate and multi-faceted enough for you to cover in a meaningful way without fluff or repetition and should be fulfilling a specific purpose such as to inform, educate, explain, raise awareness, or something else. Before creating your content, make sure that your chosen topic will resonate with your target audience. One way to see if there is an appetite for content around a specific topic is to use a keyword research tool — such as SEMrush or AnswerThePublic — to find out what people are searching for and what questions they are asking.
When it comes to developing long-form content, having a strategy is more important than ever. You need to begin by establishing exactly who you are targeting with your content. Long-form content that is tailored to a specific audience can be incredibly powerful compared to short-form content or content aimed at a much broader scope of people. Next, plan out the structure of your piece — this can be done loosely, but you need to decide what sub-topics you will be covering within your content and in what order. This plan will help you to stay focused on your target audience when writing and prevent you from wandering off topic.
It’s true that long-form content can, at times, feel overwhelming — especially when we’ve become so accustomed to bite-sized short-form content. Adding a table of contents at the beginning of a written piece (or quickly summarizing which topics you will be covering if working in another medium), will help to divide your content into less intimidating chunks, reassure your audience about which topics will be covered, and allow them to skip to the sections in which they are most interested.
For longer pieces of writing, it’s essential to include images such as illustrations or infographics — anything that will help you to break up your copy and help your audience visualize your talking points. Consider including any videos or gifs that are relevant to the topic, too.
Nothing adds to the value of long-form content like the inclusion of expert quotes and statistics to back up what you’re saying. Not only do quotes and research increase the credibility of your content, but they also make it more sharable and engaging.
Partnering with an industry expert will not only increase the credibility and value of the content you present but will also be a great way to get attention from those who may be outside of your usual audience. If you’re working with someone who has a social media presence of their own, it’s worth asking if they’re willing to promote your partnered content on their social channels as a way to expand the reach of your content and help your audience grow.
In short (pun intended), long-form content is not to be overlooked amongst the current hype around short-form content. Long-form content will always be useful and a great way to educate and inform people on topics that need more time and attention than others. Use our tips to make your long-form content more engaging and keep your audience hooked from start to finish.