One long article or 3 smaller articles broken down into logical steps

[seowoody]

Hey,

So I think the title of my question says it all really. I've written an article which is now 3k words.

Should I :

a.) publish as one article and reap the benefits of a very authoritative page on the subject, social shares, etc, but secondary keywords will be formatted as sub-headings (H2 tags) within the article.

or,

b.) break article down into 3 logical steps, resulting in 4 pages (intro, part 1, part 2, part 3) and reap the benefits of 3 highly optimized pages where secondary keywords become primary keywords (URL, Meta Title, H1, etc)

Thoughts welcome?

Cheers,
Woody

[EGOL]

I publish long articles.  It works best for me.

If the three articles that you are thinking about are tightly clustered in keyword space then one article is definitely the way to go.  However, if the three articles have a wide spread in keyword space, each with good volume, then three articles could perform better.... but in that case I would write nine short articles tightly clustered around three keywords and publish them as three long articles that go deep and wide around the central keyword.

[seowoody]

Thanks EGOL,

So you'd definitely recommend a long article for ranking my secondary key phrases even though the page will not be optimised for them, like it would on their own page?

[EGOL]

I've written an article which is now 3k words.

Nice work!   Do you have a bunch of images to kick up the first impression impact, make it interesting and offer short diversions for the reader?

a.) publish as one article and reap the benefits of a very authoritative page on the subject, social shares,

This is what I do.  I have found that a long page is better for these reasons.....

!) much greater ability to attract long-tail queries (most of my traffic comes from these and 3000 words on a page will give you more long-tail word combinations)

2. if you have one big article then all of the social and link equity will focus on that one page.  That will make it much more powerful than splitting it between multiple pages... and one big page with lots of subheads, lots of images will be more impressive and linkworthy, tweetworth and emailworthy to your visitors.

secondary keywords will be formatted as sub-headings (H2 tags) within the article.

YES.  Use lots of these and don't hesitate to use tertiary keywords in h3 or h4.

And, consider onpage anchor links at the top of the article that enable visitors to reach a subheading in one click.  IMO these are second in optimization power only to the title tag.

Good luck.  Let us know how it works whatever you do.