Affiliates are important to have, if you own a business (brick-and-mortar or online). Nowadays, in the online realm, you and your business will need all the publicity that you can get. That’s where affiliates come in!
With affiliates, you’ll be able to spread the word further about your product or service. One of the best ways to go further with affiliates is to have them produce long-form content. Long-form content can come in various forms, including online guides and eBooks.
Long-form content can be great work for affiliates, while it can be a gold mine for businesses. So, if you’re not taking advantage of long-form content, then now is the time to do so! Good news! You’re in luck!
In this guide, you’ll learn about long-form content, why it’s beneficial to your business, and how you can help your affiliates create satisfactory content in this form. Let’s dive right in!
Long- Vs Short-Form
“Search engines like Google seem to favor long-form content rather than short-form,” says Jorge Marcos, a tech blogger at Assignment Writing Service and PhD Thesis Writers. “With long-form content, you’ll have more keywords that will do well in Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. With more SEO in your content, you’ll be ranked higher in search results. This, in turn, allows people to get to your site right away without having to search for you for too long.”
Plus, long-form content allows you to expand on your authoritative status when it comes to a niche. More educational value and in-depth discussions means more SEO, thus helping you establish yourself as an authority in your chosen niche.
Formatting
Source: Pexels
As for the format, there are many styles that you can incorporate. How you want long-form content to look like will depend on your business and niche. Just keep in mind: How you format your content will also need to be adaptable to a particular market.
Here are some formats to consider, if you and your affiliates need ideas:
- Blog articles are great content to create at any time of the year.
- A guide or brochure is perfect for describing products, services, etc. They can also incorporate visuals like images, videos, etc. Users can download this content, if you’d like.
- An end-of-year review
- The launch of a product/service
- Monthly updates (i.e. newsletters that users can subscribe to)
- White paper content
- E-books, etc.
Again, how you format your long-form content is up to you. As you figure out the format, you’ll need to communicate said format to your affiliates.
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Patience
Understand that creating long-form content takes time. In fact, creating this type of content requires the following from affiliates:
- Research
- Rough drafts
- Gaining feedback
- Revising and editing (more than once)
- Gaining more feedback
- Producing a final draft
- Getting the greenlight on the draft, AND THEN
- Publishing
So, be sure that you give your affiliates plenty of time to produce great long-form content.
How It’s Successful
Long-form content can make businesses successful in their endeavors in the following ways:
- This type of content is flexible. In other words, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Businesses can think outside of the box, and create the content that they want.
- This type of content can either be offered in full, or be piecemealed in order to get consumers to invest in it further.
- This type of content can be viewable on desktop, mobile, etc. Now, if you plan on making content viewable on mobile, then you’ll need to make the format mobile-friendly.
As you think of these prospects, you’ll need to communicate them to your affiliates, because they’re the ones that will make the content on your behalf.
Ensuring That Affiliates Produce What’s Needed
“It’s important to make sure that your affiliates have what they need when producing content for you,” says Martha Winston, a marketing writer at Coursework Service and Essay Services. “Help your affiliates as much as possible, when working with them. You can help them by giving them then information needed to succeed in their venture. Don’t just offer a title or a simple idea; show them headlines from research, along with guidelines of what long-form content should look like. You can even offer them examples of what the long-form content should be, like an interesting long-form article from the web. How they write a long-form article is more important that what they’ll write.”
What You Need
Source: Pexels
When it comes to long-form content, there are many things that affiliates will need to implement to make it a success. Some of the things needed for long-form content include:
- Imagery (i.e., graphics, images, videos, etc.)
- Your company logo
- Snapshot of product, etc.
These elements will help affiliates focus on other things, rather than be solely focused on the written word. This is especially helpful in combating writer’s block, because too often, writers – including affiliates – struggle with producing written content on the fly. So, why not break the monotony by having them focus on the “fun stuff,” while creating long-form content?
Rules To Follow
So, now that you know how successful long-form content is, and what’s required from both you and your affiliates, it’s time to look at the guidelines for making great content in this fashion.
Since you know your brand better than anyone else, you’ll need to set some ground rules for your affiliates to follow when they’re creating long-form content for you. So, here are things to consider when creating your guidelines:
- Word count
- Topics
- Deadlines
- Milestones
- Writing style
- Drafts
- Images (if needed), etc.
By having guidelines in place, not only will you have a guide for the content that you expect from affiliates, but your affiliates will have a roadmap on what they’re expected to create.
Conclusion
Source: Pexels
So, there you have it!
Long-form content can do wonders for your business. However, in order for your content to work, you’ll need to make sure that your affiliates are on the same page when it comes to said content. Think about what you want in your content: the topic, the formatting, any imagery if you wish, and so on.
We hope that this guide will help you help your affiliates create satisfactory long-form content.
