Google says content marketing is still the most important ranking factor on the search engine results page (SERP). But this has us scratching our heads and asking, “Why do search engines rank long-form content when our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter?”
While snippets of information can benefit your brand’s audience, bite-sized content is often short-lived. Content with less than 1,000 words generally gets real-time traffic. But without optimization, its traffic will eventually die down as fresher, higher-quality content is made.
Google takes the new related content and indexes it according to its relevance in ranking.
In content marketing, less isn’t more.
Most of us haven’t read through the entire owner’s manual for our vehicles, even though it has everything we might need to know about them. But after a few years of owning the vehicle, you find out it has a feature you didn’t know about. To learn more about the feature, you read the manual or Google it.
This is how long-form content works. It’s content that engages and attracts audiences long after the publish date. Long-form content is not only content related to your brand. Long-form content is also:
- Helpful: Provides a solution to the reader’s problem
- Educational: Informs the reader with valuable information
- Entertaining: Evokes a feeling or emotion in the reader
- Referenceable: The reader might bookmark or refer to it
- Varied: Comes in a variety of formats, including listicle, review, guide, or ranking
For brands and businesses, this content relates to the products or services you’re selling. If you’re an HVAC contractor, your website’s content would provide a solution like 10 Reasons Your Air Conditioner Isn’t Working, or a financial advisor’s content would be how-tos like a Step-by-Step Guide on How to Make a Budget. Not only does this content provide value to the audience it introduces the first step of the sales funnel.
Do we really have shorter attention spans?
We consume more content than ever — whether it’s social media, text messages, emails, or googling information and reading the news. Content is always at the forefront of our daily lives. Content marketing exists because people are paying attention.
In our data study Content Marketing: More Words, More Money, you’ll learn the payoff of long-form content. We will share the insights we have found that have allowed us to grow our traffic more than 35x. Our six key areas will provide answers to the questions:
- How is content marketing different?
- Why does attention to context matter?
- When does the long play pay off?
- Where should you direct your efforts?
- What can you learn to succeed?
- Who can make it happen?
Our VoiceGraphTM technology analyzed over 9,000,000+ articles from top publishers and found that long-form content is a growing trend. The vast majority of marketers use short articles, but only 32% use articles longer than 3,000 words. That’s a great opportunity to beat your competitors in the long game.
Why should you include content marketing in your digital marketing efforts?
According to the Content Marketing Institute, “Content marketing, among all the other benefits, also drives higher conversions. In fact, it has six times the power of traditional marketing for converting people into leads and leads into customers.”
In order to maximize ROI, content marketing efforts should be treated like an investment and not an expense. Long-form, high-quality content will continue to build momentum long after the initial ad campaign.
We reviewed data spanning six years and found that word counts are increasing as well as advertising value, providing proof that long-form content is the way to go. The average CPC for Google Ads as of September 2021 was $2.41. If, in the first year, your organic search visits are 70,325, your Google Ad Value becomes:
Of course, these calculations are based on your conversion values set in your Google Ads metrics. But you get the gist of it. Our data study contains hot tips for you to start thinking about how to approach your content marketing efforts.
As our industry evolves, creating and marketing content is essential. That’s why the content specialists at ClearVoice can identify content gaps for your business and help you fill them.
Our hand-vetted talent network of over 25,000 content professionals specializes in 20+ industries and 180+ business categories like health, finance, travel, software, real estate, and more.
We have the ability to create the ideal content for your brand’s audience. Whether it’s blog posts, white papers, infographics, design, interviews, ebooks, or anything else, search our talent network of 600,000+ work samples for the right expertise for your content project, big or small. You’ll find the best of the best in our network, and we are so excited to share our data study and start the revolution of long-form content marketing.
