Long-form Content: Good For Lead Generation Or Wasted Effort?

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Author: | Digital Marketing Experts

Long-form copy — 1,500 or more words — has received a lot of attention recently among content marketers and SEOs. Long-form content, when well executed, certainly goes a long way toward establishing credibility and expertise. And there is no doubt that from an SEO perspective, good long-form content (HTML text) gets favorable treatment from Google’s crawlers.

The problem comes with “well executed” and “good.” Creating high-quality long-form content, especially a steady stream of it, is no easy task. It requires research, interpretation of data, perhaps a week’s worth of time from a highly talented (and probably highly compensated) copywriter, extensive editing, extensive client/internal review, more editing, and considerable time from the design team to create supporting graphical elements.

Whew, lots of work. Is long-form content worth the effort?

As it always is with marketing, the answer to that question is: It depends. For sure, creating long-form content because it’s the latest shiny object, or because you see competitors doing it, is not a good reason. It is too expensive an undertaking, and with no quantification of goals, a money pit waiting to be dug. Situations where long-form content makes a lot of sense include:

  • If you are in a business where expertise is a critical factor in securing new business, long-form content gives you a great chance to showcase yours. Businesses from accounting to home remodeling to health care certainly benefit from “going long.”

  • If your brand is not widely known, long-form content can help you build credibility and enable you to be published on highly respected and highly trafficked blogs in your industry and related industries.

  • If you are already committed to SEO, and the results are neutral to positive, long-form content should help you take your campaign up a notch, perhaps several notches. (I’d be careful about diving into long-form if your SEO is failing, since there may be underlying reasons that would negate the potential of long-form. It’s not a silver SEO bullet.)

  • If you sell complex, technical products, long-form content that explains and softly sells them could be a terrific and very direct way to generate sales leads. In this case, the best “home” for your long-form content could be your website’s appropriate product page.

Over to You

What’s your impression of long-form content? Where do you think it works best?

Digital Marketing Experts

This was written by one of Straight North’s digital marketing experts. Our team stays up to date on the latest digital marketing trends and best practices to inform our audience and create strategies that deliver results for our clients.

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