If you were hoping for a guide on how to get laid, I apologise but I have no idea how you do that. This is about the love of long-form writing.
What is long-form writing?
No one seems to agree so you’ll struggle to find a definitive answer. In my world, it’s a blog post or article beyond 800 words. Other kinds of long-form writing are whitepapers, case studies, industry guides… blah blah blah.
Things are now potentially going to get rather sordid as I attempt to make comparisons with romantic relationships and blog posts
Hold on to your ha’penny!
What’s the long game to attraction?
Content marketing means building an online library of targeted information.
But it also means building relationships.
And like any worthwhile tryst, it takes time. Long-form writing is the ‘wine and dine’ approach to pulling clients. There is no wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am with this method. In the context of this post that would be the paid ads route. Look at PPC (Pay Per Click) as the casual hook up to gaining website traffic.
Nothing wrong with paying for traffic, by the way (or casual hook-ups for that matter) however, content creation is about being wanted long after the paid traffic has dried up. Long-form helps to build organic reach over time, so a blog strategy is something to have alongside your paid campaigns.
It’s called the long game for a reason.
You can’t ‘jump into bed’ with a lengthy piece of text.
Is it getting hot in here?
This is why I’m calling it the long game to attraction, do you see? There will be a mating ritual – a dance that can take time before anyone wants the goods. You have to put in some considerable effort and continue to add top-shelf, tip-top content.
Just like romantic relationships, you’ll have your preferences.
The same will apply to your client type. You attract by being the perfect partner to those that seek you out.
Law of attraction.
I’m not referring to some woo-woo philosophy. I’m talking about attracting like for like.
For example, when we fancy someone it’s for a number of reasons.
First, we like the look of that person.
We then seek a certain personality. Finding that special someone who shares similar values is really important to any relationships’ success. You have to share things in common. We need a fine balance of different and similar traits to keep things interesting (and working).
It’s sort of the same with your long-form writing.
You attract your audience by appealing to certain factors.
But you won’t be attractive to everyone, and that’s exactly the point. Not even Angelina Jolie, that symmetrical-faced, modern-day Venus is everyone’s cup of tea.
To further illustrate the point, I quite like Claes Bang.
A Danish actor of much merit, seen by British audiences in the BBC series, Dracula. Now, he’s getting on, is our Claes (not that that was ever a stumbling block to any man on, or off-screen – amirite ladies?) and he may not be considered by some as ‘Mr Hollywood’.
I’m not talking Paul Hollywood, even I draw the line there.
And yet he’s totally hot, in my opinion.
Well, hello there:
I’m losing my thread here, what is this post about?
Ah, yes.
What else?
The beautiful blog is pivotal in driving traffic to our little corner of the online universe.
It’s key to how well we rank in terms of SEO. It also shows anyone who cares to read it, how bloody good we are at what we do. So if you want to up your organic traffic I suggest you get cracking with blogging. I have loads of help for you on my blog that will guide you through the long-form journey.
And each post you write can be repurposed.
You can publish it as an article on LinkedIn or as a guest post on another site. You can also chop it up and use it across your social media. It really is a versatile little medium that will do wonders for your website. And if you get someone to blog for you, you’ll never be out of content ideas again. You’ll also have more time to do something else, like perv at Claes.
(Or David Ginola, or Brian Blessed or whoever floats your boat.)
If you think I might be your type, in terms of content writing, then I suggest you hit the button.
Leave a Reply