08 Feb How to Write a Quality Long-Form Article in WordPress

There is an incredible amount of content out there, and a lot of competition for users’ interest. Have you ever considered that writing a longer, more in-depth article might be the way to differentiate your content? Keep reading to find out how to write a quality long-form article in WordPress.

What is a long-form article?

A long-form article is a longer than average read, usually 2000 words and up. Traditional internet wisdom dictates that shorter articles, 500 words or so, are the way to go to keep interest, but that isn’t necessarily true. Long-form articles are all about bringing creativity back to content marketing. You can really dive into a subject in a long-form article, and if people care about the topic, and you write in an engaging way, that can be very effective.

Why write a long-form article?

There are a lot of reasons to write a long-form article. For one thing, they increase the amount of time that readers spend on your site. The extra content means people will have more to read, as long as you write your article in an interesting and engaging way. These articles are also great for increasing user engagement. A longer article means you can really get in-depth into a topic, and that increases the chances of stirring up a healthy debate in your comment section or social media. The more engagement, the greater the odds of your article being shared and going viral. 

Make it visually appealing

“When you write a lengthy article, it’s important to make it easily digestible and easy on the eyes. People prefer not to read a wall of text. It’s important to properly utilize things like sub-headers and have an easy navigation system so people don’t get bored,” writes Clayton Casson, web developer. A table of contents and tweet boxes are other ways to keep people engaged with this type of content. Including high quality images and infographics is important; top-performing articles are always full of good-looking images. There are SEO optimized themes that are designed to make it easier to integrate images into articles along with other essential features for your website.

Lists are your friend

One really good way to create engaging, long-form content is to write a list. A list works because it breaks up the content and isn’t a wall of text, making it much more approachable and digestible. Lists are made for scanning, which is how a lot of visitors engage with content online. Another strength of a list is its ability to show off pros and cons of something. You’ve probably noticed the internet is full of list articles, and there’s a good reason for that: people love them and engage with them.

Check grammar and proofread

Once you’ve finished writing that long-form article it’s time to polish it. Make sure you do a thorough job of checking over the grammar and proofreading. It’s hard to edit your own work, so don’t hesitate to get some help from the pros. Here are some good tools to try out:

EliteAssignmentHelp and Essayroo – Use these online proofreading tools so that you don’t leave any typos in your article. It’s very tricky to proofread your own writing, but these tools solve that problem. Editing is an important step in the writing process and not something to rush through before you hit publish. Don’t risk losing your credibility by leaving in mistakes, let the experts take care of it.

Extra Tips

Optimize your post for SEO. Your long-form article should have decent SEO just by virtue of its word count, but there are ways you can supercharge it. SEO Plugins such as Yoast can help with nofollow links, passive voice, meta descriptions, and keyword density. Consider using keyword research tools to find the best long-tail keywords so that your long-form articles can rank better on search engines like Google.

Another thing you can do is include a post reading time at the beginning of your article, before the table of contents. People like to know what kind of time commitment they’re getting themselves into. You can easily add a reading time using plugins such as the Reading Time plugin. 

Conclusion

Writing long-form articles is a great way to improve user engagement and make your content stand out, but it needs to be done the right way. Make your article easy on the eyes and easy to read and digest. Consider writing a list type article. Don’t forget about your SEO. Use these tips to write a quality long-form article in WordPress.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Grace Carter is a tech editor at Research Paper Writing Service and Case Study Writing website. She writes about latest trends in development, engineering and marketing. Also, Grace teaches business writing at Big Assignments, educational portal.