Why 3000+ Word Blog Posts Get More Traffic (A Data Driven Answer)
Home » Blog » Content Marketing » Why 3000+ Word Blog Posts Get More Traffic (A Data Driven Answer)
long form writing
With decreasing attention spans and everyone using small screens, it makes sense to publish 300 word blog posts, right?
You may argue – this content strategy works for Seth Godin. Just look at the number of shares on his posts.
image86
But you are not Seth Godin and you should consider long form content of short form content.
And the data on Google’s top 10 results also show an allergy to short content (unless you’ve a very authoritative domain).
Web users are becoming smarter every day. They want specific answers to specific questions. The number of long-tail searches performed are increasing every day. Your content strategy needs to match their increasing savvy.
image79
So as a blogger, you’ll have to laboriously compose more words for search engine optimization and conversion rate.
Let me just say the words:
You have to create long-form content, meaning 2000+ words high-quality blog posts. This needs to be your new content strategy.
I am a big believer in evergreen long-form content pieces. They perform better and add immense value to your audience by going beyond just scratching the surface.
image70
As per HubSpot, a companies are saving an average of $20K per year by investing in inbound vs. outbound marketing.
image49
Many bloggers suffer from little traffic and decide to kill their blogs. But don’t jump the gun!
Do you want to further optimize your inbound marketing efforts?
Then long form evergreen articles can give you that edge over your competition who focuses strictly on short form content.
Here’s how:
The majority of blog posts published are 500 words or shorter. You can stand out in the noise by putting an extra 1500 words worth of work.
Longer articles generate business leads for a longer timeframe. This is because they attract backlinks and organic traffic from Google timelessly, organically making it evergreen content.
You’re perceived as an authority in your industry. Your audience appreciates comprehensive posts that delve into intricacies of their pain points. They won’t need to jump on 10 different websites to get the same information.
Long form is sustainable. You can launch a marketing campaign solely by repurposing these epic content pieces.
Buffer experimented with not publishing any new content for a month and distributed their existing content in a value-packed email course. It garnered 18,185 signups within 6 days, a great conversion rate on a counterintuitive content strategy.
image17
Here at NeilPatel.com, all of my articles are 4000+ words. And, in a year, I’ve already crossed 100,000 visitors/month.
But creating long form content does not mean cranking out irrelevant and repetitive words.
Rather it’s all about Providing Value.
That should always remain your major blogging goal – even if you were focusing on short form content.
In this post, I’ll break down creating high-quality long form content step-by-step. I expect that you’ll feel confident in your ability to create 3000+ word articles by the end of the post as well as trust that this is at least a good option to test against existing short form content you may have in play.
Learn how I generated an extra 395,562 visitors by writing 3000 plus word blog posts.
6 data backed reasons for inspiring you to create long-form evergreen content
If you’re wondering if long-form content will fit your niche, then look no further than BuzzFeed.
They’ve heavily invested in investigative journalism and have a separate section for indepth stories. The reason is they want to build a brand with sustainable assets.
image93
Another brilliant example is Wait But Why – a blog that publishes long insightful content (1500+ words) once per week.
These examples have proven sustainability compared to the old short form content mill formulas popular a few years ago. Search engines reward long form content.
Are they even sustaining their current traffic at such a low posting frequency?
Nope. They’re thriving with this content strategy.
Their articles go crazy viral earning hundreds of thousands of shares compared to similar short form content. Their post on Generation Y got more than 2 million shares.
image71
Their research-backed piece on Artificial Intelligence impressed Elon Musk.
Elon Musk
✔
@elonmusk
Good primer on the exponential advancement of technology, particularly AI http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html …
10:46 PM - Jan 23, 2015
The Artificial Intelligence Revolution: Part 1 - Wait But Why
Part 1 of 2: "The Road to Superintelligence". Artificial Intelligence — the topic everyone in the world should be talking about.
waitbutwhy.com
118 118 Replies 1,172 1,172 Retweets 1,339 1,339 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy
In fact, Google has dropped hints about favoring in-depth content by providing it a special place in its search results over short form content. image06Still, these are currently hints, right? I know of something that’ll interest and inspire you to take action – hard data. Here are 6 studies on how long-form content affects your search engine rankings, backlinks and social shares. 1. Average number of referring domain links for articles greater than 1000 words increase (from 6.19 to 9.53) – BuzzSumo and Moz teamed up to analyze 1 million articles this summer. They found that 85% of articles are less than 1000 words long. image47A major reason can be the effort required to write longer evergreen content. But, longer content consistently gets shared and linked to a greater extent. Look at the correlation numbers for shares in long-form content versus short form content. image59The strong correlation of long form with links isn’t new. Look at the data from content that get links 2012 version. image63Even in 2012, less long-form posts were written, but they got more backlinks. 2. HubSpot’s analysis of 6,192 articles found 2000+ words articles got more backlinks and social shares 2500+ word articles on HubSpot earned the most links. image642500+ words articles also earned the most social shares. image19And articles between 2,250 – 2,500 words earned the maximum organic traffic. Short form content wasn’t nearly as competitive. But this is one side of a content strategy coin.image313. BuzzSumo’s analysis of 100 million articles shows that in-depth articles get the most shares on social media In their sample of 100 million articles, short form content (less than 1000 words) was shared 16 times as often as the long-form work. 3,000-10,000 word posts averaged the most social media shares (8859). image824. Quick Sprout blog posts longer than 1,500 words get 68% more tweets and 22% more likes than shorter ones My analysis of 327 blog posts on Quick Sprout showed that longer posts get more social media engagement. Posts greater than 1500 words averaged 293.5 tweets and 72.7 likes, whereas posts under 1500 words averaged 174.6 tweets and 59.3 likes. Data shows this as a powerful content strategy.image16At my start-up CrazyEgg, we noted the same trend – long form content on the homepage converted 30% higher than short form content. image025. CoSchedule’s Analysis of 6 long-tail keywords shows that long-form content ranks higher in Google Garrett Moon analyzed the first page rankings of 6 keywords. He found that the top 5 results averaged more than 2,000 words. image73Google gets more search engine fodder and you’ll rank for more long-tail keywords. 6. WordStream increased their on-page time and user engagement by incorporating long-form content on their blog. Initially, the WordStream team was skeptical of the long-form content strategy and published articles over 1000 words. They only focused on search engine optimization. They changed their blogging and marketing strategy. A major factor that increased their average on-page time from 1:35 to 4:33 was long-form content. Their most popular article for 2013 was 2300+ words – Find Your Old Tweets: How to See Your First (Worst?) Tweet. image13Writing insightful and detailed content will also rank you for many long-tail keywords and increase your search traffic and conversion rate.
8
