Case Studies: The Power of Long-Form Content

How are you allocating your 2015 marketing budget? There’s a lot of marketing tactics vying for your money from billboards to television to SEO. The possibilities and combinations are endless, especially with the web.

However, companies have significantly increased their budgets in one particular area: content marketing. Here at WebFX, we have seen tremendous results for clients using our content services, especially long-form content. Today we are going to explore a few case studies surrounding how long-form content impacts search rankings, traffic, and conversions.

Read on to learn more!

What is Long-Form Content?

Long-form content, also known as skyscraper content, is a page or blog post with around 2,100 words. The content is often broken up with videos, pictures and customized graphics.

The page is typically optimized with long-tail keywords, and the content usually addresses common questions that are searched by potential customers. Long-form content is a resource for your target audience. Not only does the content draw potential customers to you, but it also builds brand loyalty and establishes your company as a thought leader in your industry.

Long-form comes in different degrees (which is why we split our service into three categories). Basic long-form is just as I described it above, with a few photos, maybe a video and copywriting. There is a more advanced version that consists of longer copy, more visuals, and attractive storytelling formatting. Top of the line long-form usually involves interactive features, videos, or GIFs, and over 3000 words of copy.

Is Long-Form Content Effective?

Long-form content is a low-cost, high-impact marketing tactic.

The three case studies below will show you just how effective long-form content can be. But before we dive in, here are a few ways that long-form content can benefit you:

• Increase search rankings for long-tail keywords
• Create new opportunities to be found by potential customers
• Position your company as an expert and leader in your field
• Increase overall site rankings (Google loves fresh content!)
• Build trust and credibility with current and potential customers
• Allow journalist and bloggers to easily link to your site as a resource

Long-Form Content Case Studies

Do you want higher traffic, a wider audience, and to capture more leads? Below are three examples of long-form content we’ve produced for our clients that do just that. There are three ways long-form can be published: as a blog post, a new page on your website, and as extended page copy (adding copy and graphics to an existing page).

I’ll be sharing an example of each and how long-form content helped the client.

AZ Family Dental

For the past five months, AZ Family Dental has published long-form articles with the goal of increasing traffic and widening their audience. Each long-form piece is tailored to one of their buyer personas in different areas of the customer’s journey.

Four of the posts went on their blog, and a fifth was created as a new page. The site’s overall traffic increased with each long-form piece that was published. While all long-form content performed well, we will look more in-depth at their most popular piece published in June, 21 Famous People Who Had Cosmetic Dentistry.

This long-form post received over 140 social shares and almost 4,000 pageviews, which made it the most visited page on the blog. AZ Family Dental’s results prove that constant, consistent long-form publishing has a significant impact on readership growth and traffic.

CJ Pony Parts

CJ Pony Parts is another client that relies on long-form articles to inform their customers, the majority of which go on their blog.

However, this case study will focus on the extended page copy we created for their 2015 Mustang parts page, which you can see here. The goal of this long-form piece was to rank #1 in Google for a competitive keyword, and to increase traffic to their page, which in turn would increase conversions. The impact of long-form extended copy is clear.

Soon after we updated the page, traffic began to increase. The page made the #1 spot for the targeted keyword, beating out a competitor.

scoutPRO

This last case study covers a long-form piece created as a new page for scoutPRO, a fantasy football tool. The intention was to increase traffic and conversions.

After being published for less than two months, the new page has already received over 3,800 social shares and 2,600 pageviews, which is a significant increase compared to their overall traffic (below). We placed a newsletter signup form on the new long-form page to capture leads. 22 people signed up for the newsletter or bought a subscription to scoutPRO’s tool after visiting the long-form page.

As you can see, the value of long-form content is in the numbers. These three case studies show how long-form content can boost traffic, increase Google rankings, and deliver more conversions than other types of website content. Tell us about your experience with long-form content, or ask any questions you may have about it, in the comments below.

We’d love to hear from you! Photo credit: Matt Kowal