Congratulations! You have put in the required work and got your website up and running. Now, whatâs next is to put your website out there. I like to believe that in life, there is no such thing as luck, so if you are sitting there, hoping that one star in the sky would align with another, make things go your way, and make your website popular, Iâm sorry (Iâm actually not) to break it to you but you are on a train heading to the land of wasted potentials.
One way to make your website popular and well-known is to get it on the front page of Google, and how do you do that? Simple! SEO! Now, I now wonât go into what SEO is all about. I will do you one better and talk about one of the most underrated SEO strategy â Long contents.
Why Are Long Form Contents Important?
To fully understand how this strategy works, you ought to know that the search engine is a three-way game where the leading players are the websites, the information consumers, and the search engines that act as a link connecting the two earlier mentioned parties.
Now, to ensure the information consumers keep running towards them for information, search engines make sure that they can provide well comprehensive answers that would fully satisfy their customersâ curiosity, and how do they do that? Simple! By showing only websites with contents they believe would answer their customerâs questions extensively and satisfactorily.
Now bringing us to why long contents are better, the question is which do you believe is more likely to provide an in-depth, detailed, and helpful solution to a problem? A 200-word article or a 2000-word post? Exactly.
It is evident that the content, apart from being extensive, must be of quality, relevant and offer the user what they are looking for.
In order to get relevant and beautiful content, you first need to plan the content of your site, This will give you a general approach on how to apply the most convenient strategy for your website and your audience. Google currently considers the following criteria when evaluating a content:
If you want to tip the odds of making the first page of search engines in your favor, creating relevant contents of over 2,000 words will do the trick. However, this is only one part of the solution and not all of it.
Content length helps the SEO experts to work on those factors, which make the content highly noticeable to the search engines. Some of these critical factors include.
As far as creating a compelling title is concerned, you must have an eye to judge a good title from the bad one. âLose 4 Pounds in Just 2 Weeksâ, is a clear example of a good title. This is so, as the title serves as an irresistible invitation to read the content.
On the contrary, âHow to lose weightâ is a less engaging title, since the title suggests that the content is all about those weight loss tricks, which everyone is already talking when there is nothing newâwhy people should read such content.
Now, letâs talk a bit about the high dwell time. To put it simply, dwell time is the actual time that a person/visitor spends on the web page before going back to the Search Engine Result Page (SERP). Longer the person stays on a page, higher the dwell time will be.
Once you successfully harness these elements of quality content, the next step is to add them in long content. Content marketers are following this principle to improve their overall search rankings by earning more backlinks and increasing the number of social shares.
While ranking a page, Google doesnât rely on the word count. However, there are certain indicators, which suggest that content length correlates with better search rankings. In fact, long content makes it possible to include those factors, which assist Google to rank a page.
This may sound confusing, as there are numerous elements, which influence the SEO performance of your websiteâs content. To make things clear, here are some of the most prominent SEO benefits associated with long form content.
Long Tail Content is the use of a less popular and specific set of keywords used by an audience to search for a particular topic. As these terms are less used than others, it's easier to be found in searches, and it's more likely to make conversions in your website.
When you write a good and lengthy article on your blog or website, writing long-tail content also helps to rank in Google.
For example: if you write an article title titled "SEO On Page" this is more generic than if you write one titled "Tips to write headers and help your SEO On Page."
The benefits of the second one are the lower competition that will have compared to the first one, so it will be easier to rank.
There are a few search terms, which are of extremely high volume. However, the popularity of the most search terms is not that high. The search terms with less-popularity are known as the âlong tail.â The long tail search terms have earned its name due to their place on the graph, which shows a comparison between the number of searches and the number of words in a key term.Â
Let's put another example. Imagine you have an online store of products for pets. Now you need to put the focus on specific keywords in your content.
So you make keyword research, and you find some of the keywords and phrases used by potential buyers of your products. With a list of keywords, you need to choose which one to use.
Credits: https://www.flickr.com/photos/caseorganic/3269767147/
In the graph, the line on the upper left side of the graph usually rides high, representing popular and short key terms. However, with the decrease in search-volume-per-search-term, the graph line sinks down and continues to extend, which resembles a âlong tail.
Search terms or keywords show what type of information users are looking for. Although popular search terms may appear in more search results, these terms are not suitable when you are looking for specific information.
For instance, âPetsâ and âDogsâ are famous search term as compared to the âCocker spanielsâ and âCocker spaniels puppiesâ. The later terms are far less popular than the former ones. Although the popularity of terms like âPetsâ and âDogsâ appears to be tempting, it may not be a good option when you are selling food for puppies.
In most of the cases, a popular search term would turn out to be a high-cost and high waste term, mainly because the competition of these type of keywords is way too big.
Also people usually use long tail keywords while searching for their desired information. Hence, when creating your content strategy, it is essential to think about a variety of words and their combinations, which people can type.
The reason why specific search terms manage to draw a few searches each month on Google is that even though the opportunity is relatively small, startups and new businesses can use these particular terms to grab the attention of people looking for a particular product or information.
The primary reason behind following a long tail content strategy is to defy competition. When most of the web marketers are focusing on highly competitive keywords, it would be wise to go for less competitive search terms.
The factors involved during long tail content creation strategy include target keywords, target geographies, and target market segments to create a wide range of permutations. This allows the content creators to deliver high quality and genuine content to each of the specific segments.
When addressed to a particular segment, content can engage relevant users and enhance the chances of lead conversion. Creating a perfect long tail content strategy isnât a simple task. In fact, it demands hard work, investment, and patience.
However, when moving ahead in your SEOÂ journey, donât act hastily. It requires you to optimize your site's content, which demands a lot of time and effort. Moreover, before following your SEO strategy, make sure to optimize your content for the target audience.
For this purpose, you need to analyze how visitors interact after landing on your site. Whether they get the desired information or bounce back immediately, you can optimize your website in an ideal manner by evaluating the user experience.
Launched in May 2012, the Google Knowledge Graph is a mechanism, which helps Google to understand information about places, people, things, and how these entities interlink with each other.
It helps Google to improve its search relevancy. Google also provides Knowledge Graph boxes, within its search results, which offer direct answers to relevant search queries. Knowledge Graph is one of the various ways, which assists Google to find exactly what they are looking for. This system largely depends on the intentions of the searchers.
These Graphs show information regarding thought leaders and businesses. To optimize your content and display the right information, you can assist Google while creating a Knowledge Graph, which is in line with your business goals. The Google Knowledge Graphs serve as inspiration, allowing you to understand what type of content people want to see.
Another most influential source for helping Google to understand your content is Schema Markups. The term Schema relates to the semantic vocabulary of tags. When added to the HTML, it helps the search engines to understand what is your content about, so you increase the chances to improve the rankings for a particular related set of keywords. Markups are nothing but HTML codes, which helps Google to analyze the type of data available on a particular website. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft created Schema to enhance the contextual value of the online content.
Before start writing long-form content, you need to consider a few things. Some of them are listed below.
While creating your content, you need to provide authentic information. This means that the content should be informative and exciting. Longer content with inappropriate information appears to be boring. Remember, only good content is capable of obtaining higher rankings.
You canât just continue writing long content without any reason to do so. As a matter of fact, some web pages and sites can offer better conversion rate by offering short-form content. Hence, before creating your content, make sure what form of content is ideal for your site.
Most of the popular blogs and sites take their strength through their social media accounts. They have lots of followers who assist the site owners and bloggers in spreading the words. In this context, long and great content can help you to strengthen the relationship between you and your audience. Hence, it is essential first to build up your social media account and then start working on creating a great piece of content.
Did you know? With long and good contents, it is possible and easier to incorporate other SEO strategies (Usage of keywords and key phrases, and a mobile-friendly website), thus killing three birds with one stone.
Expertâs suggestion: âFocus on searcher intent. This should underpin all of your activities- research. Creation and distribution. What is the searcher really trying to achieve and how is your content helping them reach this goal?â â Simon Ensor ( 5 ways to find great long-tail keywords: https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/03/27/keyword-research-5-ways-to-find-great-long-tail-keywords/ )
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