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What is best for SEO? Short content or long content

Content

Long content is not necessarily better for SEO than short content. As with many things in SEO, this varies by case.

Sometimes, long content is an exaggeration and a waste of resources. Other times, it is necessary to have a better chance of ranking.

In this guide, you will learn a simple way to find out how much you write on a topic by topic.

But first, let's introduce:

• What is short content?

• What is long content?

• Short content vs long content?

 

What is short content?

One definition that can be mentioned, short content is almost anything less than (1,000) words. You can only consider something less than (500) words as short-form content, and that's fine.

What is long content?

Also, according to one definition, long content can be considered to be almost anything over (1,000) words. You may see this as an exaggeration, as you may not consider any long content unless it is more than (2000) words. It's up to you.

Should I write short or long content?

If you're asking this question in the context of SEO, what you're likely asking is, “Do I need to type thousands of words to rank for this keyword? Or can I write something shorter? ”

reasonable question. 

But you shouldn't decide this by assigning a random word count.

Instead, ask yourself, “How much do I need to write to satisfy researchers?”

Here's a straightforward way to answer this question in five steps:

• See the ranking

• Drag the search results for your target keyword. You can do this in two ways.

• If you are an Ahrefs user, use the Keywords Explorer and scroll down to the SERP overview.

 

If you are not an Ahrefs user, search Google in the Incognito tab and use Ahrefs' SEO Toolbar to display the results for the target site.

Read also: Profit from SEO - How to achieve the largest return from Google Adsense 2022

Choose Content Format

No matter how much you write, your content is unlikely to rank unless it matches what the researchers want.

This is why it is usually best to choose a content format that is already arranged.

Here are some common content formats to look for:

• Guides.

• Listicles.

• How-tos.

• Tutorials.

• Reviews.

• Definitions.

• Comparison posts (Vs.) posts.

for example; If we look at the ranking of blog posts for “eCommerce SEO”, it is very much a “guide”, so obviously, we also have to write a guide.

If we look at the ranking of posts for “keyword deconstruction,” we will see a mixture of definitions and how-tos:

1. This is known as a mixed intent keyword.

2. With mixed-purpose keywords, it's up to you what look you want to create. 

3. Just keep in mind that some content formats will give you a better chance of promoting your business than others.

For example, when you're in a position and able to find keyword decoding issues, it makes more sense to write a how-to blog post than a header post.

Read Also: The most effective methodology to Become a Blogger in five straightforward Steps

Create a Search-focused Outline

A research-focused outline is an abstract plan for your content that draws inspiration from similar high-ranking content. The idea here is that similar higher-ranking content clearly satisfies researchers, so analyzing it can help you understand what they want.

The best starting point for a research-focused outline is a content gap analysis.

Let's say we want to create a directory targeting the keyword 'pour coffee'.

If we take the highest-ranking directories and connect their URLs to Ahrefs' Content Gap, we'll see all the keywords that one or more of these pages rank for in the top 10 results. We can include them in our scheme.

If you need more inspiration for a chart, visit the pages themselves and discover their subheadings. This will also help you better understand how to organize your content and may reveal sub-topics that you may have missed.

For example, if we open two high-ranking guides to “pour coffee” and use the Ahrefs SEO toolbar to display subheadings, we'll see that they're talking about equipment. This will probably be something important to include. We can also see that both proofs begin with a definition. This makes perfect sense and is probably the best starting point for any pouring coffee guide.

start writing

It's finally time to put pen to paper and turn an outline into 'content'.

This is where you can unleash your creativity and share your knowledge with the world. Just remember not to stray too far from your outline, because it is there to ensure that you cover what is needed to satisfy the researchers.

Don't worry about; Word count or length at this point. Just focus on emptying your thoughts.

Here are some helpful tips if you are having difficulty:

• Freewrite: Here you write without any restrictions, you write without stopping.

• No backspaces to correct spelling errors.

• Do not rewrite the sentences.

• just write. 

• You'll likely find that your content flows better if you can master it.

Use the Pomodoro style: This is where you write for 25 minutes before you take a five-minute break. Repeat this process as many times as necessary to accomplish your content.

Use the Distraction-free writing Tool, one of my favorites is Bear, but there are others like this.

Whichever app you're using, we don't recommend using an app that displays word count as you type. It is too distracting; Avoid that, you just want to write as much as you need and no more. Don't even look at the word count.

 

 Read Also: 7 Components of  Ideal SEO-Optimized Text for WordPress

Get rid of the stuffing

Regardless of whether your content ends up short or long, your first draft will always be very long. will contain; Back-to-back sentences, bullet points that no one cares about, and paragraphs that are too long.

This is very normal for a first draft. You will find it much easier to revise and refine your ideas just by writing them down on paper rather than grabbing them on the go

Here's how to do it in three steps:

Self-editing: This is where you edit the first draft and remove any unnecessary padding. You should also rewrite any jagged sentences and make sure things are as concise as possible.

Tools like Hemingway and Grammarly can help.

The second step is to convince a friend or colleague to give Feedback. 

This can be difficult because most people don't want to hurt your feelings. 

Ask them openly about their comments on things

J that you can cut or shorten. 

This should make their feedback more focused and reduce their worry about offending you.

The third and final step is a round of self-adjustments, based on your friend or colleague's feedback. No matter how many words you have now, that's what your content needs.

 Maybe it is a long-form. Maybe it is short. It doesn't matter. 

What matters is that you wrote what was needed to meet the researchers' expectations.

Is it really that simple?

Kind of, although there are some other factors to consider that may influence your decision:

Avoid repetition

Let's say you search for subtopics of a content segment and search for a topic that you previously covered on your site.

For example, if you have a blog, and you have targeted a beginner’s guide that explains link building, and you mainly use the keyword “link building”.

Here to find out what you are doing to write a new topic, you can review the step we mentioned at the beginning of our article (about checking ranking by whether you are an Ahrefs user or not), and then you may see that researchers want to know link building strategies and techniques.

The tool searches for what has already been published. If you really publish custom guides on most link building strategies, then there is no need to rewrite a long guide without any new added value; alternatively, you can keep things short and link the new evidence with pre-existing evidence for each tactic (or strategy) in case the reader wants to know more.

Multiple posts in different formats

Let's take a keyword like “guest blogging”.

If you look at the SERP, it's a mixture of "generally short" definitions and "long" evidence.

Although you can choose one format to create here, you may also want to consider creating multiple posts in different formats to try to win multiple rankings. In this case, this might mean creating a post of a short meta-type and a long directory.

 

 

Dealing with competitive keywords differently

Let's say you're targeting a highly competitive keyword like "Search Engine Optimization".

We see a mix of definitions and guides in the SERP, but almost all of them have backlinks from thousands of sites. Most of these pages are old, have collected their backlinks over many years, and continue to earn backlinks thanks to the SEO vicious cycle.

Bottom line: If you want to rank for this keyword, you will need a lot of backlinks.

In this case, you'll likely have a hard time doing this by following the audience with search-focused content. 

You will have a better chance of attracting the links you need by posting something interesting or innovative (and better than doing link awareness).

Note that this does not mean that you need to post long content. Long-shaped guides can be hook magnets, but short-shaped pieces can also be.

Conclusion

Focus on satisfying the researchers, not hitting a few random words.

If you work with freelancers and need to give them an approximate number because you're paying for the word, make your research-focused chart a guide for them. If there aren't a lot of basics to cover, ask them to keep it short and nice. If there is a lot to cover, give them an approximate limit.