Long-form content that ranks and sells
At Nielsen, my focus was long-form content built to do two jobs at once. I wrote and produced in-depth guides, reports, and articles that brought marketers in through search and gave the sales team something substantial to put in front of prospects, driving 30% year-over-year growth in organic traffic along the way.
- Client
- Nielsen · Global Content Development
- My role
- Senior Content Manager
- Worked with
- Sales, SEO, design, and Nielsen's research experts
- Timeline
- 2021 – 2022
- Formats
- Guides, reports, e-books, and long-form articles
The challenge
Nielsen's research shapes how the media and advertising industries make decisions, but much of that expertise was locked inside reports and presentations that rarely surfaced in search. Marketers and media buyers were asking exactly the questions Nielsen could answer and finding their answers somewhere else, while the sales team had few in-depth pieces to share once a conversation was underway.
The opportunity was content substantial enough to earn its place in search and credible enough to support a sale. Every piece had to satisfy data experts, hold a busy marketer's attention through the full read, and give a salesperson a natural reason to follow up.
My role and focus
As Senior Content Manager on the Global Content Development team, I focused entirely on long-form assets. I planned, wrote, and produced in-depth pieces around search demand, working with sales, SEO, design, and Nielsen's researchers so that each one could attract the right reader and help move them toward a conversation.
- Drove 30% year-over-year organic traffic growth through long-form content
- Wrote and produced in-depth guides, reports, and articles on priority topics
- Built every asset to serve both search visibility and the sales conversation
- Partnered with researchers so every claim and data point held up to scrutiny
The approach
I focused on topics where search demand, sales priorities, and Nielsen's expertise overlapped, so every piece had a reason to exist beyond filling a calendar.
Instead of chasing volume, I invested in comprehensive pieces that covered a topic completely enough to earn their place in search results and keep it.
Each asset had to work for the marketer arriving from search and the prospect a salesperson sent it to, so I structured them to be easy to scan on a first visit and persuasive on a closer read.
Finished pieces became tools for the sales team, giving them credible, in-depth content to share at the right moment in a conversation.
Navigating the hard parts
Long-form invites detail, and subject-matter experts wanted every nuance kept. I edited for flow and pacing while giving the experts final say on accuracy, so each piece stayed rigorous without becoming a chore to read.
Searchers and sales prospects arrive with different intent, so I built each piece with clear entry points and a strong throughline that worked whether someone skimmed it or read every word.
Organic growth rewards patience, and my engagement had a defined end date. I prioritized the topics with the strongest demand and built the assets to keep performing after I moved on.
The work
A selection of the long-form pieces I wrote and produced. Each opens in a new tab.
What I learned
The best long-form content does more than one job.
The pieces that performed best answered a searcher's question so completely that they became the natural thing for a salesperson to send next, and that dual purpose is what made them worth the time they took to write.
I still plan long-form content that way, asking not only what a piece should rank for but which conversation it should help start.