Can Longer Content Influence Your SERP Rankings?

October 6, 2022 | Content Marketing

Content Influence Your SERP Rankings

In an age where content is king, getting your blog and web pages noticed requires more than just a few good ideas. Keywords obviously feature high up in the bid to be noticed by search engines, but without the right length, you’re likely to get overlooked.

So how long is long enough and how does content-length affect your rankings?

Here we explore some key concepts in content, including ideal length, keywords, and how you can utilize your posts for maximum impact.

1. Longer Is Better

Traditional marketing and content experts would have told you that short, snappy, attention-seeking content trumps the long essay any day of the week. While that may have been true once upon a time in advertising circles, as marketing has progressed so has content and how it is used. Nowadays, it’s not simply about grabbing reader’s attention, nowadays people aren’t just browsing, they’re searching for specific content and expecting specific results. They don’t want to be taken to just any site. They want to find exactly what they’re looking for.

Let’s face it when we talk about searching for content, we’re talking about Google and ranking in the SERPs: the higher, the better. When’s the last time you scrolled down through the second or even third results page? Languishing at the bottom of the search results is no better than not appearing in the first place.

Gone are the days when peppering your content, of any length, with a few keywords would earn you a place in searches.  As search engines such as Google have evolved, so their search capabilities have become more sophisticated. Google understands that a smattering of keywords is not enough to produce good results; that a long-form piece of writing is far more likely to be closer to what searchers are looking for. Thanks to its sophisticated algorithms, it is able to distinguish between poor quality and high-quality results and filters its searches accordingly.

Spending time writing the long blog post is going to pay dividends in your rankings if done properly. Experts suggest 2,000 words to be the minimum amount to aim for. Even then, a longer piece will play out differently so don’t be put off from publishing your content if you’re pushing more than 2,000 words.

Diana Shipman, a Marketing Specialist at Writemyx, said: “Writing to this length requires a great deal of skill. To produce a lengthy blog is one thing but to keep relevant and readable is quite another. The key is to plan your content and approach writing in a logical and clear way. Avoid rambling and repetition or you run the risk of losing readers and losing returning customers”.

2. Length Plus Relevance

Of course, having a lengthy post is just the start of the story. To get real results in ranking you need to make your content readable and relevant. If you are writing to this kind of length and you want to appear high up on Google, you need to include all your relevant keywords several times and make your text Search Engine Optimised (SEO). However, a word of caution: if you simply litter your post with keywords and phrases that sound forced or unnatural you will lose readers and your rankings will suffer. Those algorithms are great at picking out this kind of content.

Your audience is not stupid and can see when a piece of writing has no real intrinsic value. To avoid this mistake and if you find this too difficult to challenge yourself, then it’s a good idea to employ someone who can produce a well-written but SEO-friendly blog post for you, rather than risk alienating your site visitors.

You might also want to consider having a list of relevant blog post topics under your belt, ready to go. Staying on topic for your particular industry is vital as this makes you relevant and keeps your keywords up-to-date. Don’t forget to update your blog regularly as old content will simply slip into a pile of out-of-date irrelevance and be uninteresting to readers, even if they do find you. Instead, update your blog post monthly with the latest news and developments from your organization and business as a whole.

3. A Word On Back Links

As well as appearing high up in the rankings directly, you’ll also want to consider gaining backlinks to your website.

These highly lucrative marketing goals are also gained by content generation and go a long way in pushing you higher up the search engines. Long content works in this instance by attracting link creators to your quality content.  They want their audiences to see the most comprehensive, most value-driven content and will backlink to your site (if that’s what you are offering). Quality backlinks don’t just come from anywhere, they can be hard to attract and a 250-word piece on your site really is not going to do the job.

Jon Hunter, a Copywriter at 1day2write and Originwritings, explained: “The key to this is quality. Too many people produce blogs and web content that does nothing to engage the visitor. To really gain good backlinks and get pushed up the search engines you must stay relevant. Backlinks are often overlooked but they are crucial to getting content noticed”.

4. Longer Is More Social

As well as creating a greater chance of being picked up in search engines, longer content has other benefits to it.

It goes without saying that a well-researched, well-written, and engaging piece of writing stands more chance of being picked up and shared on social media than a short paragraph or two.

These shares can also be highly beneficial to your website as they help position you as a voice of authority and a trusted source, they are free and they help search engines pick up that you are being shared and talked about. This may be part of your overall social media strategy but it crosses over easily into your marketing and SEO plans as well.

There is, of course, a time and a place for short posts and they are useful when writing, for example, a product description. Short posts can be used to pick up keywords and SEO content and if used often enough will help you get picked out in the rankings. However, the key to long-term success is long-form postings.

Conclusion

As we’ve discussed, we‘re not just talking about any collection of words on a page but content that stands out as the real deal; a quality product whose main aim is to engage readers, rather than be used as a tool for higher ratings.

Marketing has changed over the last decade and demands a more sophisticated approach. No longer are potential customers simply there to be reeled in, they demand more and expect the best.

Rather than being a daunting task, writing high-quality engaging content should be seen as an opportunity to present your website in its best light and prove that you have what it takes to stay at the top of the ratings for the long term.

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