If you take yourself a few years back, the content was not the MVP of the hour, and marketing strategies revolved around sales advertisements, etc. However, the ever-expanding world of content, along with the increase in the usage of the internet has truly proved that content is true, the King. Marketers have realized that sending meaningful and informative articles at their users or potential audience helps to build trust like nothing else. However, as a brand or a user makes a content strategy, there is one question that remains constant – Short Form Vs. Long-form content. Which is better and what will work for me is one question that we have always encountered while discussing content marketing.
When we take an extensive look into this dilemma, there is no straight answer. There are a lot of factors that we have to consider, before deciding on Long or Short-form content. In this article, I will walk you through both the type of content, their pros and cons, and the factors should you consider while deciding between them.
Let’s start with Short-form Content, and take a look at its pros and cons.
What is Short-form Content?
Short-form content is considered to be less than 1000 words, which is simple, easy, and quick for the reader to grasp. Some marketers draw the line at 1200 words while others do so at 600, but the general understanding of the short content is anything under 1000 words.
The idea of short-form content is to get the idea or the message across without any game-playing. It is straight-forward, with uncomplicated verbiage, that does not require complex or critical thinking to get through to the other side. Instead of going in-depth into a topic, you can just cover a specific area.
For example, Instagram Captions are short-form content as they are precise, to the point, and urge the readers to take a look at them. Similarly, almost all the social content that we see on our phone while scrolling away is a form of short-content.
Other examples include News articles, infographics, emails, small duration videos, etc.
The trend towards short-form content started with the advent of social media. It also popularized because most of the readers and users are looking at the content through their mobile phones or tablets. Instead of reading line by line, they go through the article, scanning and finding their interest point. This is the reason why vines were so famous, and the recent Tik-tok popularity has hit off the charts. The attention span needed for these types of content is small, and therefore have to be engaging and creative. Even Pinterest, which is so easy on the eyes, is a form of short-content.
What is Long-form Content?
You might have already guessed what long-form content is. Anything that goes beyond 1000-1200 words comes under the long-form category. These are more informative, in-depth, and insightful, and not made for a quick-glance reading. Rather, you need to sit down and invest your time.
Few of the examples of long-form content are – Detailed blog-post, white papers, e-books, webinars, pillar pages, guides, evergreen pages, tutorials – you get the drill, right?
The long-form content aims to engage the audience as it provides a topic on which the reader is looking to educate themselves. Moreover, long-form performs extremely well on the Search Engine, particularly Google when compared to short-form content. It is a very common SEO practice to mention that blogs with more than 2000-3000 words catch the attention of Google, rather than the same topic covered within 1000 words. And as we know, putting content on the internet means you want to see it on the #1 page.
Long-form content is also a great addition to an online marketing strategy. Why; you ask? Because in-depth guides, tutorials, & informative posts are used to cater to the highly-invested audience that is looking to get a deeper insight into your services, products, or skills. As you provide them with informative articles, their trust and your brand value significantly increase.
That being said, it does not mean that short-form content loses its value when you’re trying to aim for better visibility on the internet. These two types of content have their set of pros and cons – which we will be seeing in the next segment.
Pros & Cons – Short-form & Long-form Content
As I mentioned before, there is no one answer to what is a better type of content. They each have a set of pros and cons, and you need to decide which one aligns with your end goals.
Pros of Short-form Content
- In today’s fast life where everyone lives on social media or their cell phones, the short-form content provides an effective, quick, and interesting way to send across a piece of information, make a point, or simply converse with your audience. It is the easiest mode of communication you can adopt.
- Short-form content is less resource-intensive and comes around quickly when compared to the long-form content.
- It is mobile-friendly, which makes it easier for people to consume the content on their commute, or while mindlessly scrolling, etc.
Cons of Short-form Content
- It is not evergreen, which means it can easily get out of fashion and lose interest over time.
- Does not do well with search engines, which might beat the point of writing a blog post or article if you’re trying to rank.
- With short-form content, you have to stick with a specific area of a topic, and you will be unable to cover a topic completely in one go.
- Might work for some time, but once it gets formulaic, it becomes harder to catch the attention of the readers.
Pros of Long-form Content
- Long-form content performs better when you’re looking through SEO-point of view. As Google ranks long-term content in a higher place, it makes it easier to perform better. Moreover, a search query by any internet user requires detailed results.
- As an in-depth article will be able to cover more keywords, this type of content again fairs well when ranking on search engines.
- Another SEO benefit of long-term content is that it allows you to add more backlinks, thereby, amplifying your blog/website’s performance.
- As a person who lands on your detailed article, blog, video, or any other form of content, he will stay for a longer period of time as it serves their purpose. This leads to a better conversion rate.
As we can see, long-form content is largely needed for SEO purposes and fits quite well with many business’s marketing strategies.
In conversation with one of the leading digital marketing agencies in India, we discussed how the benefit of producing content goes beyond SEO, and, therefore, Long-form content should not be the only way forward for many aspiring businesses..[Continue Reading]
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