Google loves information. More and more businesses are realising the potential in publishing quality guides and articles on their websites: it captures interest, traffic and ultimately can develop both brand awareness and conversions.

Content in its own right isn't enough

However, just publishing content isn’t enough. You need your content to be found and to be recognised as having value by search engine bots.

This is where long form content comes in. Long form content helps you to be found, makes it easier to rank in results pages and ultimately drives traffic to your website.

Detail matters

When you’re writing long form articles, don’t expect people to read the entire thing. When you’ve written the ultimate guide on screwdrivers, for example, the average person probably won’t read all 5000 words.

However, that high word count, and ultimately the relevance it produces, is going to get your article seen in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and then users can skip around the article to look for the information they want.

What are the benefits?

1. Getting Found
   One of the best ways to demonstrate to Google that your content is information-rich is through length. Long form content is more likely to rank and therefore it gives you the best chance of being found.
2. Generating Backlinks & Shares
   The longer an article and the more information it contains, the more people are going to reference it or show it to others.
3. Promotion
   Informational posts are great material to share on your social media channels to get people to engage with your brand. They make a nice change of tone from sharing your products or services.
4. Generating Relevance
   Talking extensively and thoroughly about a topic is going to produce a blog that’s highly relevant for a certain subject within your industry.

How to write long form content

For advice on how to write long form content, with 8 best practice tips, read our detailed guide.