Content writing has grown exponentially over the last few years. As online business owners realize the importance of search engine optimized content, they have tried to work out how long should a blog post be and understanding how the algorithms work and how best to ensure their content climbs the ranks.
After all, nobody wants to spend hours writing valuable content that gets lost on the internet. As a result, content has become central to driving organic traffic and conversions on online business platforms.
There was a time when 500 to 800 words hit the sweet spot. However, if you’re keeping ahead of the SEO trends, you’ll know that that number has increased. Long-form blogs have become very popular, and for a good reason.
HubSpot analyzed the performance of 50 of their top blog posts for 2019 and found that the word count averaged at 2,330, although 16 of the top 50 were less than 1,500 words. The same study found the best lead-generating blog posts were 2,500 words long.
How Long Should a Blog Post Be?
Though content length does matter, this doesn’t mean that longer content is always better. The ideal length of a blog post depends on several factors, which we’ll discuss below.
It Must Meet the Objectives
Every blog has a purpose, and the purpose and objectives should guide you on the length you should target. Your objectives may vary from seeking social media shares to gaining traction in Google ranks.
If, for example, you want to inform your audience of a new product feature or service that you offer, shorter posts should do the trick.
If you are looking for backlinks or social media shares, a long-form blog would better serve your needs. Backlinko recently analyzed 912 million blogs. They found that long-form posts received 77% more backlinks than the short form equivalent. Their analysis also found that high-quality content with between 1,000 and 2,000 words received the most social media shares.
It Must Serve Your Audience
The answers to many questions in marketing lie with your target audience. When considering your audience, you should ask the following questions:
- On which social media platforms is your audience active?
- What type of content do they share?
- How long are the blog posts that they share?
In understanding your audience, you can tailor blog posts that meet their needs.
Know the Competition
Any good marketer knows the importance of understanding what the competition is up to. So do your research and find out what high-quality content is ranking for your competition.
Typical Blog Lengths
- 75 to 300 words – don’t work well for SEO, but they’re good for comment generation
- 300 to 600 words – not good for SEO, but may gain shares
- 750 words – this is the usual length of newspaper articles, can gain shares
- 1,000 to 1,500 – this is good for comments and shares and is long enough to share a good deal of information
- 2,450 words – this is the magic number for ranking highest on Google
Long-Form Blog Posts
How to Write a Long-Form Blog Post
The thought of writing a blog post of more than 1,000 words is a daunting one for many content writers. However, if you are accustomed to writing shorter posts, you may not know where to start.
How long it takes to write a blog post of 1,000 words or more will depend on your level of experience and how much you know about the topic.
If you’re an inexperienced writer with little knowledge of the subject matter, you could take up to four hours to write the post. On the other hand, an experienced writer who knows the subject may be able to churn out an article in a little over an hour.
Writing a long-form blog post takes both time and energy, so you will want to get some traction from it. High-quality content is, therefore, non-negotiable.
Quality is King
Though word count is important, unless your blog post is of the highest quality and contains accurate and engaging material, yours is a lost cause.
There are several essential aspects of writing an engaging blog post that will attract organic traffic to your online business. Writing blog posts bloated with unnecessary words will serve only to irritate your audience and drive them away.
The most essential aspects of valuable content writing have been listed below
Readability
It sounds rather obvious, but it is important to write with the reader in mind. Think about the kind of questions your audience may have and try to answer these as clearly and simply as possible.
The attention span of many internet users flags easily. Unless your piece is easy to read, you will lose the reader right from the start. A good readability score depends on short sentences, short paragraphs, and simple words.
Authority and Accuracy
It is essential that all your high-quality content is accurate and adequately researched. Google rewards well-researched articles with promotion up the ranks. The search engine algorithms also reward authority which is measured on backlinks and shares.
The best way to get your blog post shared is to write valuable content that the reader finds interesting or amusing.
Distinctive, Useful Writing
Your blog must offer the reader interesting information that is useful and not a rehash of every other blog post on that subject. Originality is important. With all the high-quality content on the internet, you may battle to find anything that is totally original. If this is the case, you can always put your slant onto already published content.
Include Media-Rich Content in Your Post
Think about how you can improve your content with images, videos, diagrams, and more. For example, visitors are more likely to spend more time on your online business website if it is visually pleasing.
The benefits of long-form blog posts
- A long-form blog post can offer readers many advantages. Long-form allows the reader to find all the information they need in one place. It also allows them to scan the headers to choose what they want to read
- The longer your posts, the longer the reader will stick around on your website, so they are more likely to look for more valuable content on your site. Longer visits by readers serve as a quality signal to the search engine algorithm. Quality is what the algorithms seek
- You have a better chance of getting a higher ranking on Google if you write top-quality blog posts of 1,000 words or more. Google looks for keywords, and the longer your optimized post, the more keywords Google will find. You can also include related and long-tail keywords
- Longer blog posts can include more links, images, and headings, all have which can help with keyword usage
FAQ
How Long Should My First Blog Post Be?
If you don’t have much experience with blogging, you probably just want to get started. So, 1.000 words is a good start. However, many new bloggers start with shorter posts. Search engines, for various reasons, give preference to longer blogs. Also, longer posts tend to get more shares and links. Both of which will help to move your content up the search engine ranks.
How Long Should a Blog Post Take?
According to a recent Orbit Survey, the average blog takes about 3 hours and 55 minutes to write. The same survey found that the bloggers that took longer to write their pieces also reported the best results. How long it takes to write your blog will depend on how much research you have to do and how long the completed blog is. Bloggers are writing significantly longer blogs now than they did a few years ago. Writers of longer blogs report better results.
How Do I Balance Long-Form and Short-Form Content?
Short-form content is less than 1,200 words. We use this type of content for infographics, news articles, social content, and short blogs. Long-form content, at more than 1,200 words, offers in-depth information about the topic on hand. Unlike the short-form content, it is not a quick read; instead, it aims to educate and inform the public.
Content length must serve the objectives of the content. To properly balance your long-form and short-form content, you must have set goals for the piece. Know your audience and produce the content that is most likely to attract their attention and engage them.
Recommendations
There are a few tools that can help you create and optimize your content.
SurferSEO
What we like the most in SurferSEO is the in-depth SERP analysis tool. Enter a keyword, and you will get information on the average word count of content it’s used in, the use of partial match keywords, alt text, and more. Such an advanced SERP analytics tool is one of a kind.
SurferSEO also provides you a graph of keyword performance in search results. The SERP similarity metric shows how close a suggested keyword is to your initial one. However, you should understand precisely how those metrics work so you won’t get overwhelmed by the amount of information and know-how to use them.
Frase.io
Frase.io is a content creation platform driven by AI services that promise to streamline and simplify your SEO content writing.
Conclusion
So how long should a blog post be? It seems that long-form blogs are here to stay, but shorter posts also have their place in the world of content writing. Long-form blogs will help you rank up the search engine return pages, but they take time and energy. Therefore, your decision on the length of your blog should be guided by the blog's purpose, target reader behavior, and competitor analysis.
Blog length is also not the most important criteria. Your research must be immaculate, and your article easy to read. Only original, valuable content will attract the interest that you seek.
