Well, the answer to this question lies in the type of customer and their intent. So, if the individual is just casually scrolling LinkedIn, then the hundred-word engaging piece will likely grab their attention fast. But what if the individual is looking for a deeper understanding about a particular topic? Then the 1500-word blog will help satiate them.
So, long story short, you need both kinds of content in your marketing mix.
This is what Hootsuite has to say about the purpose of using long-form and short-form content: “Short-form grabs quick attention, while long-form builds trust and deeper connections.”
But the important question is when to use each form. As a small business owner, you might not have the bandwidth to focus exclusively on this or create both types of content. That is why outsourcing the task to companies offering content writing services can be the best alternative for you. But we will talk about the benefits of outsourcing later.
For now, let’s first focus on defining long-form and short-form content while also identifying the pros and cons associated with each.
1. What is Long-Form Content?
Long-form content is lengthy and covers the topic in depth. Long-form content can be of various kinds, including blog posts, videos, and articles.
If we talk about long-form content in writing, it would be articles or blog posts of 2,000+ words. You can publish long-form content to explore a particular topic thoroughly, answer complex questions, and demonstrate your expertise in a area.
For example, you can create ultimate guides, case studies, eBooks, and detailed tutorials on particular topics in your business domain, and post them on your website, LinkedIn, or Medium to demonstrate your expertise. Since long-form articles demonstrate expertise, it helps your site give out strong EEAT signals, helping you rank higher on the SERP.
2. What is Short-Form Content?
Short-form content is a brief content format that is easily digestible.
In terms of writing, short-form content are short blog posts of around 500–800 words, infographics, and social media posts. In terms of video, short-form content is videos under 2 minutes in length. Short-form content is punchy and to the point. Their sole purpose is to capture people’s short attention spans, and such contents are ideal for social sharing.
So, as you can understand, short content can draw people in, and long content can nurture them once they’re engaged. And you can hire SEO content writer to strategically use a mix of both. But more on that later. Now, let’s focus our attention on the pros and cons of each form.
3. Pros of Long-Form Content
Long-form content helps you earn SEO brownie points, display your expertise, and earn leads. Here is a more detailed list of the specific benefits of publishing long-form content.
• SEO and Traffic: Studies have shown that long-form content ranging between 2,100–2,400 words ranks higher in search rankings. This is because long-form content offers more keyword optimization and internal linking opportunities, along with offering in-depth answers to queries loved equally by humans and search engine crawlers. Long-form content also attracts 77.2% more backlinks compared to the short-form counterpart, further boosting SEO authority.
• Authority and Engagement: Because long-form content is in-depth, it keeps visitors on your site for longer periods. A study found that compared to short-form content, long, comprehensive posts increase on-page time by 40%. Well-crafted long-form content created by companies offering content writing services also tends to get more social shares and establishes your brand as an industry expert.
• Evergreen Value: Detailed long-form content continues to remain relevant long after its publication date. For example, if you hire an SEO content writer to write a well-researched whitepaper and publish the same, you will keep attracting traffic for months. You can also keep the whitepaper behind a simple signup form and capture leads.
4. Cons of Long-Form Content
The above advantages of long-form content might make you want to hire SEO content writers to solely focus on creating long-form content. However, before you take the step, let us walk you through the disadvantages or cons of long-form content.
• Time and Cost: A long post demands significant effort. A ballpark estimate of the time required to write a 1,400-word piece is 4 hours. Longer pieces that dive deep may need much longer time frames. Even if you leverage virtual employee services or professional content writing services, creating top-notch content will require significant review and editing time.
• Audience Attention: Not all web visitors would like to go through long reads. It is commonly said that people today have the attention span of a Goldfish. As such, if you like to keep your audience hooked to your 2,000+ words content, it needs to be really engaging. Otherwise, you might witness an increase in bounce rate, which can downgrade your SEO ranking.
• Publishing Gaps: As said earlier, you need to spend huge effort in creating and publishing long-form content. This can cause less frequent publishing, leading to a drop in content momentum and ranking. In contrast to long-form content, however, short-form pieces are quick to produce and can be published frequently.
• Isn’t Suitable for Quick Updates: In today’s knowledge economy, information can be your source of competitive advantage. Your brand’s virality or the ability to rule public conscience depends on your ability to quickly jump on trends. Long-form content, in such cases, seems futile while you actually need short content to quickly push out updates, share breaking news, or jump on trends.
5. Pros of Short-Form Content
In the above sections, we have talked at length about the pros and cons of long-form content. Now let’s focus our attention on short-form content by first talking about the advantages of publishing such content.
• Speed and Frequency: You can quickly create and publish a short article or post. A short article or blog of about 500–800 words might require only one or two hours to produce. This helps small and medium businesses to effectively utilize their resources and maintain an active presence by frequently publishing content. Frequent content publication also helps your brand perform better: bloggers who publish weekly report better performance than those who post once a month.
• Immediate Engagement: Short content satiates busy readers or people with short attention spans by quickly answering their specific queries. On social platforms, short snackable content like short videos are apt for quickly grabbing customer attention. 66% of marketers agree that short videos are the most engaging content formats. The greatest benefit of such content that works in their favor is that they do not need a massive time commitment from the reader.
• Shareability: Short posts can be shared easily on social platforms. This makes them more likely to go viral. About half of marketers believe that short videos have higher chances of going viral. The same can be said about a short blog, carousel, or infographic.
• Cost-Effectiveness: As a rule of thumb, short content pieces can be produced using comparatively fewer resources (time and money). Therefore, if you hire writers (freelance content writers, dedicated resources through virtual employee services providers, or through companies offering content writing services), you will have more content pieces by focusing solely on short-form content. This is especially beneficial for small businesses struggling with budget.
6. Cons of Short-Form Content
Now that we have talked about the pros of short-form content, let’s also talk about the cons of such content.
• Limited Depth: Short content can’t fully cover complex topics thoroughly. They are often too brief to satisfy readers looking for in-depth information. This can hurt search engine rankings, as search engines favor content that answers user intent thoroughly. Moreover, you can hurt your ranking chances further by adapting to a short-form-only strategy for competitive keywords.
• Lower SEO Value: Short content usually incorporates fewer keywords and links. Therefore, they offer less search engine real estate in terms of backlinks and keywords. As mentioned earlier, long-form content roughly attracts 77% more backlinks compared to short content pieces. Therefore, your short-form content pieces will likely rank only for simpler, low-volume keywords.
• Transient Engagement: A skillfully crafted short-form content piece can lead to a spike in engagement or even virality in the short term. However, it will not help form meaningful long-term connections with your target audience. That’s why most viral trends fade out as fast as they start. Short-form content is great for top-of-the-funnel awareness creation but won’t help you nurture leads or fetch loyal customers.
• Frequent Effort: Trying to maintain visibility with short content is a long-term battle. You need to keep chasing trends and keep creating well-crafted short content pieces. Because the moment you stop publishing, you disappear from people’s conscience.
7. Performance Insights and SEO Impact
In the above pages, we have discussed at length the advantages and disadvantages of short-form and long-form content. But before you hire an SEO content writer to create content, you must also have at hand a content strategy that will guide you to choose between the two content types or have a mix of both. To make this decision, you must look at the comparative performance metrics of short- and long-form content.
Data reveals that long articles and blog posts win in search rankings and backlinks. A study by HubSpot found that posts of 2,250–2,500 words have the greatest SEO success. By investing in well-researched, lengthy posts, you can have more organic traffic to your site. Research also shows that articles over 3,000 words have 138% more search traffic than shorter content pieces.
In contrast, short content is excellent in grabbing immediate attention. For instance, data shows that short-form videos get 2.5 times more engagement than long-form videos. 85% of marketers also opine that short videos are the most effective format for social platforms. In terms of writing, although short blogs do not get a similar number of backlinks as long-form content pieces, they do drive shares and clicks from email and social channels.
Ultimately, everything comes down to quality. If your content can’t answer the question your audience is looking for and can’t hold their attention, then it won’t perform. The ideal blog, therefore, strikes a balance: concise enough to maintain interest and long enough to be comprehensive. Another factor to consider here is frequency. As the graph below shows, you need to post content at least bi-weekly to enjoy optimum performance.
8. When to Use Long Form and Short Form Content
If you have read thoroughly up to this point, you must be curious to know: when should you use each content type? The simple answer to the question is—use long-form or short-form content depending on the situation. Here are some scenarios to explain it in depth.
• Use long-form content when you need to explain or educate your audience. If you are launching a new product, writing detailed how-to guides can be a great way to stand out in the industry and educate your audience. For example, a SaaS startup can write a 3,000-word detailed guide about its technology to attract organic traffic, educate the audience, and establish itself as an expert. Long-form content can also help you nurture leads once you have their attention. For example, you can send detailed eBooks or whitepapers to your potential leads to keep the conversation going and avoid falling off their radar.
• Use Short-Form content to create quick impact. Short posts should be your go-to strategy to publish news updates, tips, listicles, or customer stories. Short content pieces are also great for social media platforms. For example, you can create a brief blog or 30-second video to tease a new feature. You can also create quirky posts to announce a sale or jump on a trend. Such content pieces work great as top-of-the-funnel branding and drive awareness. You can also use the short content as a hook to drive people toward your long-form posts or website.
• Mixed Strategy: Without solely focusing on either short-form or long-form content, the best strategy is to use a mix of both. Experts suggest that a brand should be using short-form content to pique interest and then convert the traffic with long-form posts. This is what Hootsuite has to say: “Short-form content drives interest and engagement, and once you have that engagement, long-form content helps to build the relationship.” For example, you can clip some attractive data and insights from your whitepaper to create engaging posts and use them as a hook to drive people to download the whitepaper. You can further keep the whitepaper behind a signup form and get user details through it.
Case study: Mixed strategy in action
Unispace, for example, uses a short hook to make its readers click on “Download Report,” and when they do so, it directs them to fill in a form that gives Unispace all the customer details (a potential lead).
9. The Best Strategy for Your Business
If you are looking to ramp up your content game by outsourcing to a company offering content writing services but are still unclear about the best strategy for your business, then read carefully. Before you start drafting your content strategy, and probably long before you hire a SEO content writer, know your audience first.
Try to look at your competition to understand the type of content that works well in your industry and use that as a starting point. You can also simply start with a mix of both and test the waters first before stressing a particular format. Initially, you might find it difficult to focus on both short and long-form as you start, even after you hire competent SEO content writers.
As such, the best strategy would be to start with detailed long-form content and then repurpose the same. For example, you can repurpose a whitepaper to create 10 different static posts for LinkedIn. Further, you can combine the static posts to form a carousel and also convert the carousel to a reel.
Final Words
At this point, the difference between short-form and long-form content pieces is clear. As you can understand, none of them is better in isolation. Each has its own unique place in your overall content marketing strategy. While long-form content can help prove your authority, build deep engagement, and offer long-term SEO value; short-form content creates instant engagement.
The smartest strategy, therefore, is to use a mix of both. Use a short, snappy post to grab attention and then drive the engaged audience towards long-form content where you nurture them. Moreover, if writing isn’t your forte or a core competency area of your business, it is best to outsource it to companies offering content writing services.
Alternatively, you can engage with Remote Resource, a top provider of virtual employee services, and hire top content writers at a fraction of local hiring costs. You can even test the waters before committing with a one-week free trial. Surely, there won’t be a better chance to hire a competent SEO content writer. Don’t you agree?