15 Helpful Tips for Long Blog Posts
03-05-2017
Long-form blog posts might be more difficult and time-consuming to write, but they pay off in the long run. If you notice, the great majority of top search engine result pages display websites that only contain long-form blog posts. What do we mean by long-form? Blog posts that range anywhere from 700-2,500+ words are usually considered to be great SEO content.
However, it’s important to note that the length alone does not constitute to the quality of the blog post as a whole. To write a powerful and influential blog post, you will have to gear your content towards benefitting your website visitors first and foremost. That means writing data-driven, highly engaging materials. It also means you should update your content regularly and have clear call-to-actions within every article.
Yet, it’s clear that the length of your article matters as well. Your article length should reflect the time and effort you put into the article, which will translate into higher conversions and post engagements.
Follow these 15 tips to learn how to write the best long-form articles for your visitors:
Research Your Keywords
Using Google Keyword Planner or any other keyword researching tool, find the appropriate keywords you want to focus on the most. Don’t stuff your long-form articles with keywords; rather, focus on a select few and dive deep into your explanation of each topic.
Use Your Keywords Early
It’s important to mention your keywords within the first 100-150 words of your article so search engine bots can easily scan through your content and rate your site.
Use Keywords Naturally, But Often Enough
We suggest that you plug in your keywords naturally as you write, but pay close attention to your keyword density. Use an analyser such as this one to check for the health of your keyword density.
Use Engaging Titles
Titles are the ultimate attention hooks, so use them wisely. A smart approach would be to make them personal and ultra-specific. For example, instead of writing, “How to Get Leads,” a better article title would be, “How to Get Fast Leads.”
Use Sub-Heads to Break Up Text
Long-form articles can be hard to read simply because of its overwhelming length, so break up your articles with sub-headings (like what we’re doing)!
Add Relevant Links
Include outbound links and internal links to benefit your visitor and make your website more SEO-friendly.
Make Your Content Data-Driven
A great way to increase your writing quality is to do proper research on the subject before you write the article. Include the statistics that you found and link back to those sources. This will give your content more credibility.
Promote Your Content with Influencers
Half of writing an article is marketing the article, so establish relationships with influencers who will help you promote your content. Jon Morrow of SmartBlogger says that if you spend ten hours writing an article, you should spend at least ten hours promoting it. He’s right.
Clean Your URL
To clean your URL is to get rid of the date and other unnecessary characters that might detract from the keywords in the title. This might not have too much SEO value, but it will make your website look more approachable to potential visitors.
Add Keyword Diversity
Rather than using a bunch of different keywords and covering dozens of different topics within the same article, rephrase your keywords. This appeals to the current Google algorithm as well, because it shows that you’re actually crafting genuine content.
Create a Meta Description
This bit is crucial for your click-through rates because meta descriptions tell your potential visitors what your piece is all about (in addition to the endearing title). Try not to skip this step!
Make Sure It’s Mobile Friendly
As you might know, search engines give more priority to websites that are mobile friendly because more searches are now done on mobile than on desktops.
Increase Your Site Speed
Your site speed speaks volumes about your user experience, so make sure to reduce the amount of redirects, pop-ups, plugins, and huge HD images so that your long-form article can load quickly and effortlessly.
Add Social Share Options
Who wouldn’t want their content to be shared if it’s good enough? Give your readers the options to share your work (and also so that they can see the amount of likes and shares you previously received)!
Ensure Valuable Content
All of these tips will contribute to the value of your content, but we encourage you to have the mindset of writing for the reader, always. This will put you on Google’s good side and ensure long-term success.
We hope these 15 tips will inspire you to write more awesome long-form articles! If you want to generate an income with your traffic today, simply sign up with us to be an Affiliate!
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