Longform isn't everything
I love longform content. Love writing thousands of words, researching deeply, putting everything in one post.
And then I read Seth Godin's blog every day and ... he's only publishing 90 or so words each time, but he does it consistently, every day, seemingly forever.
I've long believed that longer is better, for SEO, and there's a hint of truth in it, since the longer your content, the more keywords it'll contain and you might by accident include something someone will search that a shorter article wouldn't have contained.
But it's not necessary. Recipes don't need a life story before they tell you how to make cookies. As Google developer advocate Martin Splitt said, when asked if the Google algorithm prioritizes length, “No, it’s not a ranking factor. If you can say what the user needs to know in 50 words, that is fantastic.”
Write what's needed to cover your topic. That's enough. And it'll still have a solid chance of doing well on search.
I think in a way it is an indirect ranking factor.
Google wants to prioritize content that they believe is helpful or entertaining. They also put priority on metrics like "time on site". So, the longer the content (and the longer someone spends reading it), Google interprets that as "quality" (be it the case or not) so it's easier for longer content to rank higher.
You do have a very good point re. time on site. It's like all the secondary effects of that and additional keywords have enough weight that it outweighs the fact that length itself isn't specifically a ranking factor.
And yet. One wishes it weren't the case.
Sadly I think you're right.
I clearly remember how length of posts became a big thing around 2017. This trend lasted until 2022. Everyone was doing long form content. I hated it :D
Now it seems like the algorithm has gotten better at prioritizing the right content. Not in any way perfect though. Long still seems to beat short in general.
Yup, I was in the thick of it at Zapier then, writing 3k+ words in software roundups. And they did well—really well, generally. But then you'd also write something random, like this one-off post I did on getting your airport/coffee shop WiFi to connect, and that one did more traffic than a whole ton of other posts combined in just ~1.2k words or something.
Which, still, is sortof longform, but it definitely was one of the things that started me thinking that maybe I didn't need to go so incredibly longform all the time. But still, it's a hard habit to break.