How Long Should Your Blog Post Be?

Everybody has a blog these days, and for good reason. They provide information. They drive business. Perhaps they offer entertainment. But how long should your blog post be? though it seems like a fairly straight forward question, the answer may not be as simple as you would think.

But, content is king, right?

Yes, content IS king. But there can be many kings in the glorious land of the content kingdom. When it comes to content length, you need to first determine what you are trying to accomplish with your blogging. This is usually broken down into the following categories:

• increased traffic
• more comments
• increased readers
• more links
• increased revenue

All of these items have one thing in common: they are driven by the reader. If you want to increase the above things, you need to give their audience what they want. How well do you know your audience? How long do THEY want your posts to be? We can’t always know this exactly, however you can check out your post analytics to see which posts perform better and begin to figure out why. In the mean time, there are some generalizations which can be used in determining how long your blog post should be.

Increased Comments

If your goal is increased engagement, your blog posts shouldn’t be that long. Over the years, a rumor surfaced that all blog posts needed to be kept short, due to the notion that many users had a short attention span and preferred to read short concise articles. We have since learned from analyzing the google algorithm that this is not the case. There are instances where short blog posts are preferable, however, such as when answering – or posing – a question.

Asking the audience a question is a great way to get discussion started. There is really no need for a 1,500 word blog to simply ask a question, so short posts perform better in this capacity. A couple of paragraphs is really all you need. The same goes for answering a question, in many cases. 100-300 words is more than sufficient.

Another instance where short posts are great is product reviews of minor purchases. If you are writing a review of a new sports bottle, for example, a long post is overkill. Most readers will just as soon look at the reviews on amazon and buy or not based on said reviews. There is no need to go in depth on such topics.

Sharing is Caring

If sharing of content is what you are after, then you want your posts to be a bit longer. Quite a bit longer. People tend to share posts which they find value in and that they think their networks will find value in. Posts of this nature should be detailed, carefully crafted posts about a particular topic. You want to establish E.A.T (expertise, authority and trustworthiness) so that your readers feel your content is worthy of sharing. A post of this nature should be 600 – 1,200 words. Keep the text easy to read and also utilize subheadings so that the text is easy to navigate. The more organized the article is, the better.

A post of this length is not too long, but at the same time, it is not too short. It is plenty long enough to answer a question, is shareable and as an added bonus is long enough to lace with plenty of SEO.

Increased traffic from Google

We all want Google to like our content. Articles which rank in the Google search engine enjoys the benefit of increased traffic. One thing that has been noted about the Google algorithm is that is favors length. Also, in 2020, you will see that they are leaning towards something I mentioned earlier in this post, EAT. Trends today are turning towards providing value. This is being seen in social media as well. The more value you can provide, the more your content will be favored. Google’s means of evaluating this is by looking at an article’s level of Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness – EAT. Articles which rank high in these categories can do well within the search rankings.

One key factor here is length. A longer post SHOULD mean that you have taken more time, put more research into and have more accurately solved a reader’s issue. If you intend on a blog being recognized and promoted by Google, the post should be a “pillar” post – at least 2,000 words on a detailed level about a particular topic. This post should include links to authoritative sources, contain images, proper SEO utilization, not seem to promote product purchase and most importantly, solve a problem. Every blog site should have pillar posts. Not every post needs to be one of these, however.

So, how long should your blog post be?

As you can see, it varies. A blog site should contain a combination of short, medium and long posts, as each are geared towards a different outcome. Which posts you make which length is entirely up to you.

Author: Donnell Peavy