When creating content for your website, it is vital to ensure that you have a good mix in place. From video content to traditional copy and blog posts, a healthy mix will help you to rank well and will also provide an interesting selection of posts for your audience to interact with. You have two options when it comes to creating content – long-form and short-form. Which of these is best for you and your business?
Long-form content
As the name might suggest, long-form content is a lengthy piece of copy that is usually several thousand words. It could be a detailed blog post, it could be used as part of the evergreen pages of your site, or it could be an in-depth tutorial or eBook that you offer as a product or service.
Long-form content is great as it is a really good chance for you to show off your technical expertise. It is not bite-size content that has to be ingested quickly. You can really take the time to ensure that it is packed with information and detail so anyone who reads it will be well-informed about what you offer.
This is a great chance for you to also build up some all-important backlinks. Your long-form content should be considered to be an authoritative piece within your industry. If you can cultivate backlinks to it, it will help your site to be ranked better by search engines.
Short-form content
Short-form content is anything under 1000 words. It should be a quick and easy read since you haven’t really got the time to get into great detail as you do with long-form content.
Examples of short-form content typically include blog posts, news articles, and even the content that you push out on your social media platforms. You need to make sure that it gets your point across to your audience in a clear and concise manner. Leave the big, in-depth thoughts for your long-form content, and use your short-form content to explain just a single point.
Which is best for you?
Ideally, you should include both long- and short-form copy in your content. Both offer fantastic chances for you to create interesting and engaging content. Short-form content can often be created quickly, and can be very flexible. Long-form content is more of a chance for you to dig down deep and really show your expertise on a subject.
Of course, both are great for including keywords and being used for backlinks and other SEO tricks. Part of your SEO strategies should always include some long- and short-form pieces so you can display a variety of content on your site.
Start with building up a good selection of short-form pieces in your blog and across other areas of your site as these can be generated with little effort. Long-form pieces might take a little longer for you to create, but you should still aim to have a few – whether they are your evergreen pages or a much larger project you wish to work on. The best sites will always have a good ratio of both!
