Power Pages and Best Answer Content: Should You Go Long or Short Form?

Power Pages and Best Answer Content: Should You Go Long or Short Form?

Is it better to use short form or long form content for content marketing? In that same study, the average word count of a Google first page result was found to be 1,890 words. It just happens that much of the content that covers a topic thoroughly also has length. Google is essentially an answer engine and if companies want to be the “best answer” for what their potential customers are looking for, they’ll want to invest in content that is comprehensive and engaging on the topic. For powerful content, publish powerful pages. One of the tactics to become the best answer for topics that are and important to customers and that represent the solutions from the brand are what we at TopRank Marketing call, “Power Pages”. Insights about customer interests, goals, pain points and questions about the topic all inform the creation of relevant Power Pages that meet the demands of customer intent. Of course I’m talking about Search Engine Optimization. The answer is that your content should be whatever length and depth that will satisfy customer efforts to discover resources, understand solutions and to take action towards a solution. Make the length of your content more about the depth of topic necessary to satisfy customers and their search intent and less about fulfilling a generalization about content that might not even represent what your customers care about.

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Long vs short form content

Buyers have questions and sellers better have answers that are easy to find, informative and inspiring. This is the cornerstone behind “Best Answer” content marketing strategy. But what qualifies as best answer content? How deep or wide do you need to go on a topic?

Is it better to use short form or long form content for content marketing?

From informal observations like ours on video and social media to formal studies in the marketing industry, much has been said about the topic of content length with some pretty compelling arguments in favor of long form content.

For example, BuzzSumo’s 2018 Content Trends Report says long form content consistently gains backlinks which is great for referral traffic and SEO. Another study from BuzzSumo and AppSumo reported in their analysis of 100 million articles that the longer the content, the more shares it gets. In Backlinko’s own research of 1 million Google search results, comprehensive content significantly outperformed shallow content. In that same study, the average word count of a Google first page result was found to be 1,890 words.

Does this mean you should always write 1,890 word blog posts? Do customers always want to binge on content?

Savvy marketers understand that statistical generalizations can be useful for making persuasive arguments but not always so useful in practice. As a long time B2B content marketing practitioner, here’s what I’ve found to be true when it comes to long form content.

Engagement and reach are intertwined when it comes to digital content. Search continues to be an important connector of brand solutions content with buyers at the very moment they need it. A number of analysis identifying the content types that fare best in search have superficially associated length with “better”.

“The idea that long form content is best can be misleading. Content depth and utility trump length for search engines and buyers.” @leeodden

The reality is that depth is better than length. It just happens that much of the content that covers a topic thoroughly also has length. But it is not the number of words that has merit. It’s the words used, structure, usefulness, citations and associated entities that matter most for search engines trying to understand and rank “best answer” content and people looking for solutions.

Google is essentially an answer engine and if companies want to be the “best answer” for what their potential customers are looking for, they’ll want to invest in content that is comprehensive and engaging on the topic.

For powerful content, publish powerful pages. One of the tactics to become the best answer for topics that are and important to customers and that represent the solutions from the brand are what we at TopRank Marketing call, “Power Pages”.

Best Answer Content works in tandem with the idea of Power Pages, which are encyclopedic treatments…

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