Long-From vs. Short-Form Content for SEO?

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As any blog owner, editor, or content marketer will tell you, there’s one question they get more than any other: How long should my blog/article/page be? In other words, they want to know how many words a piece of content should be. And what they’re really asking is: How many words is best for SEO?

The answer to this question isn’t always straightforward. However, there are some general rules of thumb you can keep in mind to ensure you maximize the value of your content. In this article, we’ll compare short-form content with long-form content and provide our thoughts on which one is better for various situations.

What is Long-Form Content?

In order to have a meaningful conversation about the pros and cons of short-form content versus long-form content, we have to first get clear on what these terms mean. After all, short and long are highly subjective words.

Long-form content is any piece of content with at least 1,000 words (and ideally a minimum of 1,200 words). In many cases, you’ll find long-form content can stretch from 3,000 to 5,000 words or more. As the digital world gets noisier and the internet becomes full of more content, the definition of long-form content expands. Five years from now, it’s possible that long-form content will need to be a minimum of 5,000 words.

Long-form content is often referred to as “pillar content.” It serves as the backbone of a website’s content strategy. Thus, it makes sense that SEO would be a major priority.

Benefits of Long-Form Content for SEO

When it comes to SEO, long-form content has its benefits. According to this New York SEO agency, here are a few of the top ones:

  • Long-form content generally ranks better on the search engines. This is true for a couple of reasons. First off, it usually adds more value to readers (so it gets better engagement metrics). Secondly, there’s more screen “real estate” for natural, long-form keywords to be included. This leads to better search rankings.
  • Long-form content earns far more backlinks than short-form content (for the same reasons mentioned above). According to a study by SEMrush, pages that are 3,000 words or more earn 3.5-times as many links as those that are between 900 to 1,200 words.
  • Long-form content helps you build authority by communicating your subject matter expertise. This drives up conversion rates, which subsequently enhances SEO and rankings.

Having said this, long-form content also has its drawbacks. It takes a lot more time, money, and resources to produce long-form content. On top of that, it can be cumbersome to get long-form content to display properly on mobile devices. Considering that a large percentage of traffic now comes from mobile devices, this may put you at a disadvantage in certain scenarios. 

What is Short-Form Content?

Short-form content is usually considered to be anything less than 1,000 words in length. Most short-form content lands somewhere in the 500 to 1,000 word range. However, we are seeing a rise in what marketers refer to as “snackable” content. This is content that’s 200 words or less. 

Typically, snackable content is used to drive traffic and clicks to other pages and/or is designed for breaking news. It’s also ideal for social sharing. 

Benefits of Short-Form Content for SEO

Short-form content has its advantages as well. Let’s take a brief look at some of the reasons why short-form content works for SEO:

  • Attention spans are shorter than ever. Short-form content appeals to this fact and gets to the point much faster than long-form content that may require several minutes of reading. As a result, short-form content often leads to better conversions (particularly on sales pages).
  • Short-form content loads much faster than long-form content. And when you consider that saving just one or two seconds on a page can increase conversions by as much as 10 to 15 percent, the benefit is clear. Google and other search engines love fast pages. By keeping your pages leaner, you improve your chances of ranking well.

Developing the Right Content Strategy

As you can see, there’s no “right” answer. Sometimes long-form content is better for SEO, and other times short-form content performs better. The key is to know your strategy and to always prioritize quality first. Sometimes a quality piece of content needs to be 3,000 words, while other times 700 words will do. 

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