Long, long ago…in a galaxy far, far away, someone did some research and found that longer articles rank higher in Google and are more likely to be shared on the socials.
That’s the story of how the long-form content craze was born. Since then, all content marketers are trying to pump out 2,000, 3,000, even 10,000-word blog posts. We assume that if we publish super in-depth articles that thousands of blog views will come pouring in.
Hard truth: that usually doesn’t happen. According to SEMRush, that’s because your content creation strategy is fundamentally flawed.
A few of those fundamental flaws…
1) You’re thinking too big. By that, we mean that you might be targeting keywords that are too competitive. Sometimes, no matter how good your piece is, it just won’t rank. If you’re a small content marketing agency and wrote literally the best piece in the world on content marketing, it still won’t beat out the HubSpots and Forbes of the internet world.
Instead, use a tool like SEMRush to analyze the difficulty of your target keywords. Niche down until you find a lower competition keyword so you can write the best piece in the world.
2) You forgot about the user experience. Almost more important than the content is the user’s experience with your content. The best piece of content in the world isn’t actually that good if the website visitor has difficulty reading and navigating your website.
Wanna know what makes a great user experience for content? Look at Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO for inspiration. It’s an amazing piece, that’s easy to navigate, read, and understand.
3) You forgot to ask the audience. Interview industry experts for your piece. This kills two birds with one stone.
First, it’ll give your piece more credibility if a well-known expert is part of it. Second, that well-known expert probably has their own audience and might share it with their audience.
But, don’t just create a mediocre roundup piece. That isn’t great content at all. That’s just lazy.
Breezed through this one, but there’s a ton we couldn’t cover. Get it all 👇
