To meet the requirements of an Inbound Marketing strategy having a blog and writing articles is a prerequisite, however the length of the articles also matters.
How many times have I heard that my blog posts were too long and nobody would read them? Hundreds... Yet the numbers speak for themselves: the longer a blog article is, the better its performance. You doubt that? Here is the proof by 3.
Let's be frank: on the Internet, we are overwhelmed with content and our attention is always reduced.
In France, we spend an average of 1 hour 20 minutes each day on social networks scrolling our news feed and scanning the few publications that interest us.
Another important point: in France, 40% is spent on the Internet from a mobile device.
We might therefore think that Internet users, your prospects in mind, prefer short articles and that they only allow a few seconds to read them. So why write long blog articles, you might ask?
Studies follow one another and prove that this assumption about the ideal size of a blog article is wrong. In fact, the longer a blog post is, the better it performs.
3 reasons to write longer blog articles
1. A long blog article is better indexed
When a person asks me why I insist on writing blog articles so long and so documented since nobody will read them in their entirety, I talk to him about indexing.
To be honest, I know very well that most of you will not read this article throughout.
In the end, it doesn't matter, it's not my goal: my goal is to get your attention, to provide a quality answer to your question and to make sure that our story doesn't end there.
To achieve this goal, I must be visible on the Internet and this requires a good positioning in search engines.
And when we consult the studies, we realize that the web pages positioned on the first page on Google are long... Very long!
According to this study carried out by Backlinko, we realize that the pages which are indexed in 1st position on Google count on average 1,950 words.
On average, the pages indexed in the first 10 results on Google contain 1890 words.
2. A long blog article is more shared
To be visible on the Internet and attract more visitors, it is important to be successful on social networks. And there too, we notice that the longer the better.
In this MOZ study, we notice that the size of the most shared blog articles is between 3,000 and 10,000 words.
If we establish a correlation between the size of a blog article and the number of shares on social networks, we find that articles between 1000 and 2000 words represent the best "quality/price" ratio.
3. A long blog article generates more leads
It is finally the continuity of the two previous points: the longer a blog article is, the better it is indexed and the more it is shared on social networks.
If you have done the job well and your article is perfectly targeted, you will naturally attract more qualified visitors to your website. Ultimately, your blog post will have a better conversion rate and will allow you to generate more leads.
Studies show that a longer blog article generates on average 30 to 40% more conversion.
4 tips for writing a longer (and better) article
1. Define a theme dear to your target group
The longer it is, the better it is, but only if your article is interesting. Filling a blog post with wind will have no interest for your target.
At best, you will manage to attract visitors to your website but they will leave as quickly as they came. That's not your goal, is it?
To generate prospects with a blog article, you must address the issues your target group faces and the questions they ask themselves throughout their buying process.
To help you I will tell you in a next article the 18 tips and tricks for creating content that attracts customers.
2. Deal with the subject in depth
A blog article that generates leads and an altruistic article. In other words, you do everything possible to solve your target group's problems or answer their questions in detail.
By dealing with the subject in depth, you will distinguish yourself from other blogs that simply sweep it away to make mass.
The key here is to be as specific as possible to precisely meet your target's expectations. To support your comments and write a quality blog article, allow a minimum of time for data research.
Since you must write a blog article of sufficient length to be visible and convert, take the opportunity to write the reference article of the topic you are dealing with!
3. Write a scannable blog article
As I was saying earlier, I write relatively long blog articles but I am aware that most of you will not read them all. This is an important point to consider when writing a blog article.
A reader reads on average only 20% of a web page.
That is a fact and we all do it, I am the first. To achieve your goal - generate leads with your blog article - you must therefore make your blog article scannable.
The reader should be able to understand your message and capture its added value in seconds. To do this, feel free to illustrate your blog article with images and structure your text with catchy headlines.
4. Promote your blog article
Promotion is one of the P's of the 4P's of Content Marketing that we use at our customers: Planning, Production, Promotion and Performance.
To write a complete blog article, you will spend a lot of time in information research and creation. You must know that you must allocate at least as much time to the promotion of your article or risk not reaping the fruits of your efforts.
To promote your blog article, you can activate different levers :
- A newsletter
- An online advertising campaign
- Social networks
To conclude, do not forget that you write a blog article first and foremost for the reader and that you must do everything possible to answer his problem or the questions he asks throughout his thinking about buying.
Want to generate more leads from your website and convert them into customers? Read our next articles about Inbound Marketing we will publish in a very near future.
The present article in English is a translation and adaptation from an article in French published by Ludovic Salenne https://www.ludosln.net/ on January 19, 2018, who allowed me to perform this transcription.