Let’s Clear Up Some New Misconceptions About Articles
In the world of content creation, internet marketing and the broader hemisphere of SEO, you will no doubt run into millions of interpretations and perspectives on every element they entail. Some will say that link building is worth the time, while others will scoff at its benefits. Many may feel like content has to be completely unique in order not to face the wrath of search engines, while others will argue that this is not the case. There is quite a bit of subjective analysis on matters pertaining to content creation and SEO floating about, so it can be easy to fall into one school of thought or another. When it comes to article creation, however, there are several flat-out untruths that must be cleared up in order to unleash the true flexibility and creativity of writers everywhere. We’ll discuss some of these below and hope you consider them.
Blogging Shouldn’t Be Mechanical
Since the first bloggers caught wind of how search engines were viewing their content, they have sought to stay ahead of the curve and take advantage of skills and methods that will improve overall performance in SERPs. This has created a culture of bad writers: people who only know how to articulate a premise if it also results in them pinging URLs or social signals to search engines. As the nature of search engine algorithms continue to become more advanced, we now find content being analyzed on a number of levels that is not necessarily mechanical. Within a few years, it is likely that quality content written solely to inform, persuade or invoke emotion will be detectable in its totality by most search engines. Bloggers need to find their way back to the age-old skill of legitimate writing, rather than rolling the dice with technical blogging.
Don’t Worry About Word Count
When your number one priority is to create quality content that others will enjoy, simple matters such as word count should be a low priority. While extremely short or extremely long articles may underperform when compared to the average, most people do not produce content that takes up dozens of pages, or a fraction of one for that matter. Instead of focusing on word count, devote more time to ensuring that your articles are well-managed and easily digestible by readers. You may also wish to include a visual aid here and there to break up the monotony, but word count should be considered an afterthought, not a prerequisite.
Write What You Love
At the end of the day, you need to love what it is you are writing or you will find it difficult to convince others to do the same. If you are pushing yourself into deeper and deeper niches, pinging URLs to search engines and using keywords in the hopes of attracting a new audience, then it is time to take a step back and reconsider your objectives. There are a variety of ways to circulate your content these days that do not rely directly upon your ranking in SERPs; you may need to change course if you suddenly find writing to be a miserable experience. Your readers will thank you and ultimately, your blog or website will be better for it.
I really have to disagree with your assertion that word count should be an afterthought. If your blog posts have any SEO value at all, then you should write longer posts not shorter ones. It is been shown that long posts of at least 1500+ words results in something 60% to 70% more social-shares then shorter posts under 500 words, probably because short posts are not worthwhileo to share or bookmark as rarely do such articles contain much interesting content.