Steve Rayson's latest BuzzSumo article is provocative, interesting and well-written. But I do hope he's wrong when he says the future will be about more content, not less. He shares why he thinks content marketing brands will begin producing more content in the days ahead, and how they'll likely be successful by doing so.
Upon reading the piece, I did a facepalm. I was reminded of a conversation I had a few years back, when I walked into the break room of the agency I was working for, and almost bumped into the content specialist on my team.
After we exchanged pleasantries, she informed me of an unwise decision she was about to make.
Her: "Guess what? I'm going to run a marathon."
Me: "Why?"
Her: "I think it'll be fun."
Me: "OK. How many marathons have you run? And have you been training for this one?"
Her: "I've never ran one, but there are a lot of training guides online; they say it only takes 17 weeks to train for it."
Me: "..."
The philosophy of doing a lot what we don't yet do well is ruining content marketing — and the knees, joints and backs of wannabe marathoners.
If you doubt that, please explain why 90% of what's published online barely rises to the level of crap.
Anyone who disagrees with that statement is either (a) fooling themselves or (b) never had to conduct a content audit.
Even for big brands, producing quality content with frequency is seemingly near-impossible task
Therefore, when someone says "create more content," I hear "brands will continue to waste resources that would be better spent elsewhere," for now. Worse still, it means they'll see the failure as not one of execution, but born of content marketing itself.
Rayson is a solid content marketer working for a brand with a strong product. I admire them both. And while I don't mean to attack him, I would like to tackle the logic of the post, which I'll excerpt below.
[Eds. note: The primary reason I chose to tackle this topic is because content frequency and content length remain two of the biggest albatrosses impacting our industry. Despite this fact, many fail to see how related they are. That is, many brands are failing fast by chasing the long-form posts and frequent posting unicorn. Also, I'm very clear in understanding that Rayson is not advocating for quantity at the expense of quality. My contention is simply that quantity is typically the wrong goal, at least for the vast majority of brands.]
You're a brand who publishes content, not a brand publisher
The Washington Post now publishes around 1,200 posts a day. That is an incredible amount of content. My initial reaction when I read the statistic was ‘surely that is too much, the quality will suffer, why produce so much content?’ The answer seems to be that it works. The Post’s web visitors have grown 28% over the last year and they passed the New York Times for a few months at the end of 2015.
As a former journalist who spent four years in a newsroom, I've always been against the brands as publisher mantra, in large part because, well, as a brand you ARE NOT a publisher. Publishing content no more makes you a publisher than running 26 miles makes someone a marathoner. Newsrooms are built to produce lots of content.
There are often dozens of editors, copy editors, line editors and writers on staff, so quality control is baked in and a priority. Additionally, a newspaper writer can easily write several stories a day and not break a sweat, owing to an environment that places premium on speed.
By contrast, most many content marketers use junior writers or, worse still, content mills, that deliver low-quality posts for $20.
It's very unlikely that attempting to follow the path of newspapers would prove fruitful.
Better idea: Determine the cadence with which your brand can create uniquely valuable content, which Rand defined and described in a 2015 Whiteboard Friday. The key is to focus the lion's share of your attention on creating content that's exclusive and recognized as best-by-far in its class.
Will WaPo's strategy work for your brand?
I think whilst it is true that content will take a wider range of forms, including interactive content, the future is not less content but the opposite.
My reasoning is based on a number of factors including the effectiveness of the strategy adopted by the Post and others. ... As we noted above the number of pages Google has indexed over 7 years from 2008 to 2014 has increased from 1 trillion to 30 trillion.
That is an increase of 29 trillion pages in 7 years. The number of net additional pages indexed by Google each year appears to be increasing, it was 3 trillion in 2010, 5 trillion in 2012 and 8 trillion in 2014.
I'm of the opinion that seeing WaPo's strategy as anything but "effective for them" is a mistake. As anyone who's been around the marketing space for any amount of time can attest, chasing what another brand has been successful at is a bad idea. Yes, you should be aware of what the competition is doing, but seeing their success as anything more than unique to them, or their vertical, is a recipe for pain.
Remember, too, that WaPo isn't selling anything but ad space, not products, so the more real estate the better for them/businesses like them.
Also, the rapid rise in number of pages indexed by Google would seem to highlight one thing: A lot of brands are investing in content; it doesn't mean a lot of brands are being successful with it.
Better idea: After finding your cadence and nailing quality consistently, test frequency along with elements such as length and content type to find the right balance for your brand.
Quality and quantity typically go in the opposite direction
As the costs of production, storage and distribution fell, particularly with online and digital products, it became economically attractive to provide products for the long tail niche audience, in fact revenue from the long tail became greater than the hits because the tail was very long indeed. Companies like Amazon and Netflix were arguably some of the first long tail companies.
Unlike WaPo, which buys ink by the proverbial barrel and has a stout staff, most brands have razor-thin content teams, increasing the likelihood that producing more and more content means increased expenditure as new team members must be hired and vetted or contractors are hired.
As I experienced while working for an agency, brands expect that as the cost rises, so too do their rankings and traffic, which is not typically the case. And when those two don't move in lockstep, the spigot is shut off, often for good.
Better idea: Develop a goal for your content that's in line with your brand's goals, then let your marketing team test and refine the publishing schedule. You're likely to find that the right cadence to nail quality is fewer but bigger content pieces.
Don't conflate strategy with the goal
By creating over 1,000 pieces of content a day you are more likely to cater for demand in the long tail for specific niche content or simply to produce content that engages a wider audience. ... Sites such as BuzzFeed have also increased their content production, the Atlantic recently reported the following figures:
April 2012 BuzzFeed published 914 posts and 10 videos
April 2016 BuzzFeed published 6,365 posts and 319 videos
Again, these are — even in the case of BuzzFeed — media companies we're talking about, so it's not surprising that traffic, frequency and quality can continue in the same direction. For most brands, two out of three is the gold standard and one out of three is the norm.
Better idea: Stop thinking you're a media company. It's OK to adopt a strategy that includes more frequent publishing, but that strategy must fit inside your brand's overall goals, not vice-versa.
Shares are the cotton candy of content marketing
When I looked recently at the most shared content published by marketing and IT sites, the data confirmed that on average long form posts achieved more shares. But when I looked in more detail at the 50 most shared posts, 45 of them were short form and under 1,000 words. Thus people are very happy to share short form content and given the pressures on everyone’s time may prefer short form content. ...
I personally think there is a big opportunity for short form content and I aim to adapt my strategy to focus more on repurposing and republishing short form versions of my research that focus on specific issues. These could be focused around just a single image or chart.
On this point, I largely agree with Rayson insofar as shorter content, with rare exception, should be a part of your brand's content strategy (this post notwithstanding). I know, I know, many of you do very well with posts of varying lengths. I get that. What I'm saying is your content should be assigned, not by your whims or the needs of the brand, but by the needs of the audience.
And certainly not based on shares, which, as we know from a recent Moz and BuzzSumo post, do not correlate with the all-important links.
In many cases and for many brands, shares are a distraction serving to keep our attention away from the important elements of content marketing. I liken them to the cotton candy at the county fair: a lot of puff, but not nearly as filling as that smoked turkey leg.
When creating content, we should begin with empathy being top-of-mind. That's when you can allow your inner journalist to soar:
- Who benefits most from this information (i.e., who, specifically, am I talking to?)
- What are their specific needs?
- Why is my brand uniquely qualified to satisfy those needs?
- How can I best depict and share the information?
- When is the optimal time to create, share and promote it?
Notice I never mentioned length. That was intentional.
The length of your content should be determined by your audience, not your brand.
A recent study by Chartbeat, which looked at user behavior across 2 billion visits over the web during the course of a month, found that 55% of visitors spent fewer than 15 seconds actively on a page. 15 seconds!
Better idea: If readers aren't spending a great deal of time on our site's we should reward them, not punish them: create short but meaty posts; share graphics with a few lines of commentary to invite comments; share videos or podcasts you've enjoyed, as curated content; or ask a question, then be the first answer, nudging others to dive into the fray.
Whatever direction you decide to go in, do so with guidance from your audience and/or would-be audience.
Imagine a world filled with web searcher advocates
Again, this post is not meant as an attack on Raysons' post. If anything, I wanted to take the opportunity to reiterate to folks that content marketing isn't an either/or game; it's a long-haul game, a "this and that" game, an iterative game.
As someone who's been made sick from doing deep dives into clients' content, I feel strongly that we often need to protect brands from themselves. Big budgets and large teams don't prevent marketers from making bad decisions.
I've made it clear to prospects and clients that I'm there as an advocate for them, but first and foremost I'm an advocate for web searchers. The more and the better I can help brands be the chosen result (not merely the top result), consistently, the happier we will all be.
Who's willing to join me on the web searcher advocate crusade?
Thanks for taking the time to read the post. I'm interested to learn your thoughts:
Hey, thanks for the post. While I really do not agree to a lot of Content Marketing ideals, I make it a point to read articles about it from time to time.
There are two things I want to point out. First is that shorter content and frequent posting target the bigger set of the reading public - which may not be all the time your actual target audience. This is how click bait articles and sites (hello Buzzfeed, Time Mag, Bleacher Report) grew exponentially. The flipside are longform sites such as The Atlantic which continues to post month on month record-setting views/users.
One of the bigger ideas that I think is frequently ignored is that Content is not king. It has never been king. Distribution is, and has always been. In the end, short articles/posting frequencies depend on the platform you are using and the distribution method you are utilizing to reach the different audiences you have.
Bonus points for making a case for short content in a 2K word post ;)
That said, I agree to some extent, and recently expounded on the word count argument (not published yet, it'll be live on jeffbullas.com next week.) I argued along the same vein, your content length should be determined by what your readers are searching for...and should be varied length and multimedia. Short posts are often perfect for exploration of a focused topic, and longer posts often shoot off in tangental directions, which bore the reader and muddy the waters. I love long content. I love tangents. I love being so thought-provoked that I must spend half the day chasing concepts within a post. But I'm not your average reader, and research is my life.
One of my new clients is a vacation-related company. My kickstart content strategy includes a barrage of video and photo content, short, provocative posts, and personal stories solicited from visitors. But I also plan some in-depth reporting about area attractions, cost/benefit analysis, local restaurant and entertainment listings, tips on vacationing on a budget, and more. In other words...I plan to take my own advice. And also some of yours :)
Hello Ronell.
Nice article on content marketing. I am new in this field and very much interested to go forward with it. Till now, I realised that it is very important to look at the content we are posting. Consumers (being one myself) tend to read what is less content and more visual. Well, this is what I noticed with the ongoing change with technology. It seems to be rather difficult to attract with visuals only and little words and have the consumer understand everything we want to say to him. Do you think there will be a time where content marketing will die?
Hi Ronell,
Thanks for taking time out to write this article, it's right on the spot. I also feel the same, with so much content being published, you are rightly worried that we are reaching cannibalistic level with content marketing.
Sooner or later, the content from the same website would be fighting for same keywords and that would not be a good stage.
Do you think, methods suggested By Rand to create uniquely valuable content are good for websites not having too many writers / bloggers. What about news and blogging websites then? How can they assure that their own fresh content doesn't cannibalise earlier good content?
Regards,
Vijay
Hi Ronell,
i totally agree with you. The whole point of content marketing is not to keep publishing, in my opinion, it is more about giving unique and appropriate information to direct or indirect customers to address their concerns or enhance their knowledge about their brand.
But most companies have taken this approach in completely different, instead of writing one 10X content, they are publishing 10x10 = 100, ignoring the fact quality is more valueable. A writer with $20 cannot do that every week.
May be I am exaggerating it but this cannot be the future.
It totally make sense the way you presented the facts.
Playing devil's advocate, if 10x10 means that they can satisfy 10 different niches instead of writing the "Ultimate Guide to You Aren't Going to Read This Anyways", it can be very valuable to a brand.
Additionally, the biggest let-down I experience is when someone does publish 10x content, then I go to see what else they have that's great only to discover that they haven't posted since last year and I'd be better of subscribing to a competitor who keeps up with what's important to me on a more regular basis.
Hi Ryan,
If any Brand or company is quite like you mentioned then i would do the same. But frankly, at the same time we are not expecting one tinny bit to be covered as a new topic by all mean that can be merge and can be produced good one which covers more concerns of users. Moreover, too much is a same way you just wasting your energy and output is very low however if you hit few in right way that will work more than all your other 100s.
Hello! I'm new in SEO but I have experiences in guest posting also guest blogging... I agree with you Ikkie most of the time webmasters like articles that will satisfy the customers or audience.
Hi Ronell
We return to business as usual ... Quality or quantity? I may be wrong but I think as a user always pretend that the content help me as much as possible, and first aid is not wasting my time, especially when you have to say I can say briefly ...
Thanks for commenting, Luis.
I want all content marketers to be successful. So I'm always thinking of how to flatten that curve, based on my experiences.
There is no right or wrong way; there is, however, a right or wrong way for you/your brand at a given time. Whether that's shorter, longer, more, less, I say run with it.
RS
Yes, I too agree,
as per the google new updates, site with qualitative and descriptive content will get more exposure on the web world, However the article was worth to read.
This cant be ignored that your post also contains more than 1000 word :-)
I think the usability and share-ability of a piece of content are completely influenced on the quality. There's no magic number of length that correlates with how users will resonate with the piece. It's all about giving the appropriate information. The same thing applies to frequency of content production. I would much rather put out one high-quality piece of content every few months than rushing something out the door just to produce new content that no one cares about.
Excellent post Ronell!
Two publications that I have enjoyed are The New York Times and USA TODAY. They are on opposite ends of the "quantity" scale in terms of article length.
USA TODAY has articles that are just a few paragraphs and can be read in a minute. Although I really like that style, I don't have the courage to publish a lot of articles like that on my website because I don't think that they will pull the traffic from search for high traffic short tail head terms because they are so short. Maybe I am wrong. Could I get a four paragraph article to rank for "widgets"?
The New York Times has fantastic articles - and I sometimes want that level of detail - but usually their articles are waaaayyy too long to be enjoyable reading if you go to the end - so I bail about 25% of the way in and wonder what I missed. If I was the boss there, I would tell authors to cut down the length and use the time savings to write a larger number of articles at same quality level. Is that doable?
But I think that is the point Ronell is trying to make. He is saying find how your audience is interacting with A) your site, B) your vertical in general and write with their behavior in mind. If you wrote a good, informational and helpful piece about widgets and your site is about widgets, there are about a million (maybe a slight exaggeration) ways to make your page better for search engines to affect your rankings. Don't forget that how you present your writing (headline and such) will affect your CTR and engagement on the SERP, which then affects your ranking. So if you wrote a piece that fit your audience and provided the right info, you should be good regardless.
Thanks for chiming in, Jesse
I wrote that post as someone who has read/edited/researched more content in the last decade than most people edit in a lifetime. I've worked with writers and brands of all types and at all skill levels. The No. 1 problem I see is brands/individuals trying to do too much before they are ready:
Everyone wants to SEO their way to success while seeming to forget that prospects and customers reward the entirety of the experience, online and offline with a brand. We must remember that we can be the No. 1 but still not get the click.
RS
Hi Ronell, thanks for taking the time to read my post and continuing the discussion.
My own approach as you know is to produce one or two posts a month, so I am definitely not advocating writing a thousand posts a day! The aim of the article was to examine what is happening in terms of content publishing as I was very surprised by the data and the significant growth in content being created by both publishers and content marketers. Yes, publishers are different beasts but the data shows growth in all areas.
My view has always been that high volume publishing doesn't work in content marketing and that less, higher quality content is the way to go. I still think this is the case when it comes to conversions as this depends on building authority and trust. However, at the top end of the funnel the data suggests that many people are having success driving traffic and engagement with high volume, short form content. I am not saying this is right or desirable but the data does challenge my assumptions, and your assumptions, about publishing less content.
There seems to me no question that the volume of content published next year will be double that published this year. The simple growth in internet users globally, current content trends, easier to use creation tools, particularly video, and automated content will ensure this.
The Associated Press already publishes 3,000 financial reports each quarter using Automated Insights. This automation allows them to publish articles on say Apple's latest earnings within minutes of the earnings being published. I think, whether we like it or not, this content will grow, as content writing algorithms will become more widely available. My fear is it could be a lot worse than the $20 blog posts if content writing algorithms get open sourced.
As I make clear in the article no site can start with high volume content, I think you have to build a brand, trust and authority first. However, the data suggests content marketers should consider whether they increase the volume of short form content they produce for the top of the funnel. I absolutely agree with you on the short form content opportunity. However, is the future less content? I don't personally think it is, though I will be interested to see how you get on at Moz if you reduce the volume of posts you publish.
The one thing my post does seem to confirm is our joint Moz and BuzzSumo findings last year that research backed, opinion posts tend to perform well in terms of shares and links. :-)
I personally noticed with many of my clients, it doesn't really mater if the content is small or large. In fact, I also noticed that adding fresh content regularly doesn't really matter much. Site can still rank equally well even if the fresh content is not added regularly considering all other factors are taken care of.
Nice to see the focus on quality rather than quantity. It's about the value you can bring to the reader that will be a catalyst for engagement and shares.
In the spirit of TAGFEE, I have to admit this article nearly lost me, and I nearly gave up when I got to the section that was dismissive of people with opposing viewpoints.
"If you doubt that, please explain why 90% of what's published online barely rises to the level of crap. Anyone who disagrees with that statement is either (a) fooling themselves or (b) never had to conduct a content audit."
In fairness, I'm glad I read on, and ultimately I agree with nearly all of Ronell's "Better Idea" statements.
I understand the desire to clarify an approach for anyone who skimmed Rayson's article and decided to revise their brand's strategy. I do think there's tremendous value in telling brand marketers that just as much as publishing on their own, they should be using things such as Aleyda's great 2014 post on Competitor Analysis to track when your competitors are publishing work that is making a measurable impact on the verticals where you compete. After all, that should be goal of brand-side content marketing, being visible when your potential customer has a need you can solve.
Ultimately, Ronell is right, very few brands should aspire to the publication levels of Washington Post, Huffington Post, Hubspot or even Moz, but they should probably be getting content into meaningful long-tail places before their competition does. (Or before their competition partners with Buzzfeed to publish for them)
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for taking the time to read the post. Most important, thank you for sticking around to discern what I really, really mean. My approach to content marketing is very, very tough love-ish. I want brands to be successful, and sometimes that's as much about what we need to stop doing as much as it is about what we need to start/continue doing.
I'm continually astounded that we too often begin the content marketing journey at "produce content," when we could be far better served to start with goals for brand=>goals for content=>KPIs... .
People will read this post and think "He's saying don't produce long content, but long evergreen posts get the most links and long-term traffic." Or others will say/think/feel "Well, I'm having success with long AND short content, frequent posting AND infrequent posting."
That's my point: Find what's right for you (i.e., what you have the ability to execute expertly), then dive in. But don't think you HAVE TO create long-form content or do so with frequency if you're not ready to do so. You can cause far more harm than good from doing so.
I liken this whole "argument" to a new parent going to the doctor and being told you cannot pick up your child for two weeks, owing to a back problem. The parent will think "What do you mean, I cannot pick up my child?" without realizing the doctor's orders were (a) related to exacerbating an existing issue, (b) is only temporary and (c) increases the likelihood that they'll be able to perform optimally in the very near future.
Let's do what's best for our brands today and in the future.
RS
Hi, Ronell!
Good read. I, too, see that the post length (shortness) and sharing are somewhat connected. However, as a writer I have something to add to this sentence:
"The length of your content should be determined by your audience, not your brand."
Sometimes, the story is long enough only until you have said everything you have planned. This is my perspective solely. The problem with the length of the content is when people are doing it just for the sake of the word count - because they are paid per word etc. And this may be the biggest problem in content marketing.
ATB,
PopArt Studio
Great post and excellent read, thanks for sharing. With regards to quantity of content, I find with Blog Posts that posts in excess of 1000 words tend to boost Page and Domain Authority a little faster. But as you have pointed out, quantity must not be confused with endless blabber which is in most cases just a desperate attempt at a sale.
For brands/individuals who can pull it off, I'm all for longer content. However, length is a poor goal.
RS
"Please explain why 90% of what's published online barely rises to the level of crap."
This very sentense has made my day! Amen to that, Ronell! :)
And I do like how you connoted to marathoners. Indeed, so many wannabe marketers follow some formulas and principles simply because "everyone does it!" and "if it worked for Rand (Neil, Brian, choose a marketing guru here), it would work for me, too".
Bottom line is Joe Pulizzi's words at this year CMWorld: answering someone's question about how much content to produce next year, he exclaimed "STOP!" and said that “mediocre content will hurt you more than nothing at all.”
So true, Lesley. I know a lot of people think "Well, I don't know how to create 10X content," but that's not really the issue. It's really about developing the habit of ideating, designing, creating, sharing and promoting content. The results won't be great at first. But 6 months down the road, you'll be better informed of what works, what does not and begin to feel good about where the brand is headed.
RS
the longer your post the more it will be irrelevant because in reality people are now aiming for length and not for the purpose of the content. What's 1000 words if you can solve and write it around 250 words
+1 on this. Solving the users problem as efficient as possible is the answer imo.
"You're a brand who publishes content, not a brand publisher"
Excellent, simple, straightforward strategy - so much so that I wrote it on a post-it note and placed it in view of my monitor. Now, if I can only follow that strategy!!
Thanks for the article :)
I agree with his arguments , but must take into account a balance is needed in quality and quantity and the Mark is a very important factor . .
I see your point. However, if you're choosing between the two, it much be quality over quantity; quantity is a great goal once quality is in hand.
RS
So you mean my 75,000 word article won't rank first!?! (jk)
I think the problem is when businesses keep reading these articles emphasizing that more is better...
More content or quantity of content does not always equal value to readers. Marketers need to move away from the mentality of looking for a formula of success that can be scaled until they are forced to change. These are the same folks that ruined email ... and mailers...
When we realign our focus back to helping our clients by delivering the most valuable content (whether that be long, short, interactive or video) and quit publishing noise, only then will we find things like customer loyalty and strong interaction regardless of what algorithm changes are ahead.
This is such a good counterpoint to the Steve Rayson article.
I wish everyone could read this, especially young marketers. If your focus is quantity rather than quality when you start out, how are you supposed to improve as a writer in anything but volume of output?
Focusing on quality leads to so much besides website traffic, but can actually provide better insights and drive conversations forward in the real world.
TLDR! Kidding.
I really agree with the idea that content length should be determined by the audience not the brand. Good stuff. Too often marketers make it black and white and we go one way or the other depending on the last piece of advice we read. I find myself arguing both cases depending on the situation. If it takes 2,000 words to do a topic justice, do it that way. If you can say it all in one simple graphic, do it that way. Do it both ways!
As far as less content goes, I'd agree that less pointless blogging is key. But, in some cases we need more experimentation with different types of (premium) content to find out what an audience really wants/needs instead of taking the easy way out and pounding out another article nobody wants to read.
Recently this topic has also been popular in my team. Increasing the quality of content is something we all want to shift towards, but the effort and time it requires is a big problem with the amount of work already on our hands. It's always on the back of my mind though when I am writing yet another blog piece.
Hey Ronell,
Couldn't agree more with your arguments. I love how diversified searchers' needs are, and trying to hack the content game the other way around really does make a lot of sense.
Besides, social media news feeds, as well as scores of apps train us daily to respond to the short form. Like it or not, we are trained out of consuming the long article, the lengthy video, the podcast that cannot fit within a single commute to work. It's resources and time badly spent, and nobody is happy at the end.
Tim Ferriss has a 1 1/2 hours long podcast and it breaks records... Tony Horton (the fitness icon) on the other hand, witnessed success with his minute long podcast for quite a while. Different audiences need different things.
Patreon is a great way to analyze independent content creators as it gives insight into many formats that work and work wonders... Wait But Why for example posts once every blue moon, and the rather long piece explodes with attention. Alt Shift X grew its audience posting not so frequently on YouTube, stealing audience form channels with way more videos on the same topic (Game of Thrones). Casey Neistat on the other hand is doing amazingly well posting shorter videos (5-8 minutes) daily... It's all about the audience and what they need/enjoy.
I'd very much like to try and run a short blog/podcast for my upcoming fitness product. It is easier, and more essential for fitness enthusiasts to consume short content that motivates and inspires them, than to scroll into pages long pieces that would more likely move a different type of audience.
Longer form content works for audiences who are ready to listen, and this is a catch 22 in itself. Would love to see some case studies of short content examples winning the game.
I do understand how important links are, but likening social shares to cotton candy (well, yum!) makes me wonder.. aren't social signals still considered essential search ranking factors? While this has been confirmed and then denied several times, social shares still give your brand exposure that has both short-term and long-term gains, therefore shouldn't it be treated as equally important? [Sorry if this comment is a bit off-topic.]
They aren't ranking factors, per se, but they are important for the brand nonetheless. If folks are engaging with your content, as opposed to hitting the back button, you have a much better idea of what their needs are and how to better serve them in the future.
Social signals are an important part of the overall mix.
RS
Content marketing is effective to cater thorough knowledge over particular brands but it do essentially point out here in this blog that t need to be precise and to the point.
Additionally also want to share long content even with enrich contents are not effective. In social media sites for digital marketing, there is also pre-provided character limit that need to maintain.
Also consult various insights related to social media marketing and digital marketing in the below mentioned link about further information
https://www.icajobguarantee.com/Courses/digitalmarketing
Great Insight!
Absolutely we need to focus on compelling and quality content rather than long and spammy content.
I think Google check quality of content not size of content.
I came here with my feathers already ruffled from the headline. I'm glad it wasn't what I expected.
I agree with a lot of what you said. I think any amount of content is fine as long as there's sufficient value. I honestly can't believe we're still trying to address value and quality issues in 2016.
There has to be a balance in quality and quantity. Length is less important. I'll champion 400 word posts all day long if it's legit and helpful.
But when you start ramping velocity, you hit a point where quality drops no matter how short or long it is.
You lose the time you would otherwise spend on ideation, research, and making that connection. You lose the edge.
I'm grateful for the depth of content that comes from Buzzsumo, Buffer and people like Peep Laja. I'd certainly be more impressed if they could nail a topic in under 1000 words.
I'm certainly inspired to try, practice, and keep pushing the value.
I think the majority of the traffic on our blogs, call them "readers" if you want, are just skimming headlines and keywords to see if it is share worthy to hopefully grow their own network and thus drive traffic to their own blog. We hear a lot of talk about bounce rate, page view time etc. But we can't measure intent. I believe a high percentage of page views never intended to read the entire post, be it long or short. Comments are a true from of measuring engagement of the readers. That measurement is far more valuable than likes and shares and views.
Hello Ronell Smith for the post,
I've always been around trying to learn and enjoy meeting new things and then apply for better in my projects.
This is new for me, something I had no idea about or heard of him, now, I know I'm certainly going to try.
In my views, this is quite a controversial topic to discuss about. I have noticed that bigger and established brands can go for less content and can enjoy the same level of success. On the other hand, small businesses, emerging brands and startups will have to focus on both quality and quantity. I could be wrong here but this is what I have experienced.
Even though the content marketing might move to shorter content formats. Doesn't that depends upon the necessity and ideas that we work on?
That’s an interesting observation Ronell. To be fair, the future of content marketing is one of the most debated topics of online marketing. With search engine upgrades, such as Panda and Penguin, it’s possible that short and precise content may enjoy higher ranking than verbose posts.
Shorter content might help in attracting bigger audience but there are chances that the content might not reach the targeted audience. This will be a major drawback.
I personally do not see any way in which number of Google indexed pages is any indication of what we should be doing.
The number of indexed pages has risen because a) More people are online now than ever, although just a few years ago most non-techies did not bother with going online. b) More brands have realized they need a strong online presence. Especially once we take into account smaller, less active on the internet countries: Many people in many of them have only realized the importance of the web in the last few years.
We're also facing the phenomenon of people who used to avoid technology now eagerly navigating (or trying to navigate) the internet. This is the sort of person who is more likely to fall for clickbait, or those posts that have clickbaity titles but possess some content quality. But the more time these people spend online, the more they will train themselves to not fall for content they're not interested in.
I think this is the biggest argument for quality content.
Finally, a thought about auto-generated content - short reports which could have been presented as numbers, results or one-line information, pretending to be a story, like the ones on WaPo:
Google is heavily investing on providing such answers and information in the results page, without users having to click and go anywhere.
In my client space we utilize both long and short form content. One part is all short content because it is news and events driven, that portion we're plugged into the community. The other half of our industry that we cover 60/40 primarily short content being spit out. We do publish on a daily basis, but its just a 1 article due to our small resource as we have to market that 1 content to other spheres. Again thnx for the post! cheers!
Thanks for writing this. Personally, I had reached the same "but these are publishing companies" objection that you have. In addition, was I the only one to notice that nowhere in Rayson's piece was ranking ever discussed at all? It was all about how well things do socially and, while that may correlate to an occasional link, especially for people in the information or SEO guru business, links derived from social for most real product businesses are extremely rare. Social does equate to traffic but for most companies, that is not targeted, ready to buy traffic like you get from organic search. Most glaring in the piece was that, other than the question posed at the beginning of the article, content length was never discussed again. He pointed out the quantity of articles published as "proof" but never mentioned how long any of them were - something that I would think would be crucial to the premise of the argument.
Yes!!!! I couldn't agree more. I personally took "posting frequently" off my to-do-list for my blog ever since Brian Dean inspired me to only write what needs to be written and keep your existing, great, posts up-to-date. Ahrefs adopted this recently on their blog as well and I now read every post they do because they are fantastic!! I have seen others in the industry do the opposite and I am finding the quality is suffering severely.
A very interesting article. Not sure about the length of the content, but many industries would certainly benefit from less, but higher quality content. Time is limited, and I get the feeling I'm reading too much low quality posts. If you only look at SEO content, the amount of useless articles that are published every day is terrifying. I still feel obliged to scan a lot of it, afraid to miss the few pieces that are really worthwhile.
Unfortunately, this also applies to content on Moz. Increasing the number of posts probably was beneficial for traffic, but quality suffers. If you see that some authors are publishing one article/day on different sites, on top of their usual day job, you can't expect each article to be top notch. It would be great if in our industry Moz could set the example. I wouldn't mind a lower frequency if I could be certain that everything published adds value.
I think unintentionally companies are compromising on quality and trying to get their content out there as much as they can. I think, the will leads to waste of resources.
This was a great read Ronell. Quality versus quantity !
There's a line in this piece that I think should be stapled to the heads of content marketers so they can be reminded of it when they look in the mirror.
content frequency and content length remain two of the biggest albatrosses impacting our industry
I could not agree more. The number of brands engaged in the 'I write lots words lots of time now love me much' strategy is ever increasing and is at odds with what we know about how people read on the web.
Of course the shares look good and that's because many want to share what is perceived to be valuable. And unfortunately, the bigger is better mentality goes beyond our junk and to content as well. But people aren't really engaged with that content. They're not remembering it.
BuzzFeed was unique in that they posted a lot of very scannable content. It wasn't really quality content but you learned quickly that if you clicked on a BuzzFeed listicle you'd get 20 seconds of chuckle. This is your expectation from there on out. The real question for BuzzFeed is how you turn that mental shortcut we've created into clicks and attention to real news. I don't think they've succeeded there, though that's really their hope.
But here's a newsflash. No one else is BuzzFeed. You're not BuzzFeed. Stop taking the cookie cutter approach and figure out what works for your brand.
There's lots of great advice in this piece on how to do that. I'm a big fan of memory and of knowing how your content is going to be remembered. The triangle of memory. And at the end of the day content is largely about securing True Fans. If every piece of content you produce converted one True Fan in a year you're marketing reach is going to be much greater.
Great post. Frequency of posting and length of posts are certainly albatrosses in our space as you stated. It is good to hear this perspective and to really think about your brand's goals and how to achieve them through publishing content.
Hi Ronell,
This is such a refreshing piece to read. There has been so much crap being produced lately, it is hard to sort through all of the garbage to find something worth reading. When Google said "content is king", businesses began spewing as much as they could produce, regardless of the quality. Google didnt mean, pump out as much content as you can and then you will rank. My take on it was, produce high quality content pieces which people will want to read, share and link to, and then you will rank. There is too much content, not enough of it is high quality and thus you see the same articles re-written over and over.
Hey, Ronell!
Thanks for the such a wonderful post.
Yes, I totally agree with you. If we have something to say directly then why we need to stretch to make our point understand to others. Instead making content long and boring we should make it point to point as you have mentioned in your content the important part of every content is quality, not quantity. So, if we have quality content with less quantity it's good. You've made the perception clear between Quality or quantity.
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I have to admit I was fairly skeptical when I began to read this article as it leads contrary to what "everyone else" preaches. However, I think you actually highlight what marketers are catching onto, which is that cookie-cutter approaches to content just isn't working. Long-form may work, but it really depends on the industry, and likewise for short content.
This further illustrates the move in SEO from search engine focus, to consumer/user focus - please the user/provide what they want and are looking for.
Content is King. Coined by Bill Gates in 1996 and I believe this will remain as an evergreen and universal statement. With new updates coming, long and precise content will have larger value. Simple logic to be considered here is, the more useful and meaningful content, more shares, more user engagement and more relevancy and boom!
Hey Ronell, great insights on the ever challenging world of content marketing. I personally have been finding great results posting long form content (2000+ words) about once per week for my own blog, but you did offer the perfect takeaway for me towards the end of your post.
"When creating content, we should begin with empathy being top-of-mind. That's when you can allow your inner journalist to soar:
These are awesome questions to keep in mind when crafting new content, and admittedly, sometimes I tend to get tunnel vision when making sure the post is completely optimized for search visibility, while neglecting user intent. I'm going to do some experimentation in regards to post length and frequency this upcoming month and see if I can't get even better results. Thanks for the insights!
Nothing more than perfecting a formula, which strikes me as a bit of a shame.
It looks like there is not to much choice rather than to create niche long tail content with 4 mobile Adwords Ads above organic pages... Mobile users are hardly getting even to 4th Ad :-) And the situation is like this for all juicy short tail searches in all directions.