You can spend hours writing a 2500 words content but a blog with only 1000 words blog post ends up getting more traffic than your blog simply because you’re yet to figure out the ideal blog post length for SEO that can actually deliver the expected visibility and web traffic you for your blog.
This can be very painful and I can totally relate because it happened to me. When we first started out, on some days, my blog posts used to to fill up spaces on the blog without readers to read it. I was not exactly sure about what was wrong until I found a way to strategically identify the right length for my blog posts.
Most blogging pros will convince you that there’s no maximum or minimum word count for blog posts but, what if I tell you that finding the ideal blog post length for SEO can actually drive increased visibility and traffic for your blog?
Now, with recent changes in search engine algorithms and evolution in Artificial Intelligence, a lot has changed but, with the right blog post length, you can still get a decent visibility, traffic and conversions for your blog.
How Long Should a Blog Post Be?
There’s still no single one size fits all length for blog posts but with the current changes in search algorithms, most content writers have opted for an average of 1500-2500 words per blog posts to increase their chances at search visibility.
This doesn’t mean a blog post with a less or more word count than this will not deliver a decent traffic or ROI for your marketing. The difference lies in knowing what works for you.
In this guide, I will share a more detailed insight on the factors that will influence your decisions and what you should pay attention to while choosing the best blog post length for your posts and how to use these as tool to drive growth for your blog.
Pay Attention to your Topics
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Your topics are very crucial in defining the ideal length of your blog posts. Let’s say you’re creating content on a topic that needs a very well detailed blog posts like a “complete guide on Digital Marketing” for example…
For such a blog post, you’ll need a longer length blog post to effectively address the topic in detail. For a more shorter topic like “What is Blogging“ on the other hand, you’ll need a lot less word count to address the topic effectively.
In a nutshell; generally, complex topics will often require longer and more comprehensive text compared to simpler topics. But as a rule, it might be important to increase the ideal length of a blog post for a specific topic, depending on the prevailing realities in that particular industry or niche.
Another thing that could also affect your content length regardless of the topic is the audience intent. Even where the topic is simple and straight forward, if the audience intent makes it necessary to create a longer and more detailed post, you have to create just that to fully enjoy the SEO benefits from your posts.
Understand your Niche
Like your topic, your niche/industry is an important player that will also determine your ideal blog post length for SEO benefits.
Let’s say you want to create content on a straight forward and simple topic like “What is Thought Leadership?” which should not be too lengthy but you find that other top blogs and creators ranking for that topic are creating very lengthy blog posts then you have to create a much longer blog posts if you want yours to rank well like theirs.
Yes, there are niches that a 500 words blog posts for a specific topic can attract a decent rank positioning and traffic to your blog but there are others that you’re going to have to write longer blog posts to attract the level of visibility that will attract good traffic to your blog.
To be on the safe side, find out what works for the top ranking blogs for the niche you’re in or topic you’re writing about. Analyze the audience preferences, search engine positioning etc. And then get your content to fall within that range in length.
Consider your Audience’s Preferences
Your target audience are a major influence in your content journey. Their preferences will influence your ideal blog post length, regardless of your industry or niche.
If you’re in a niche where your audience prefer short, snacky and straight to the point blog posts but you’re giving them longer and more detailed blog posts, they will most likely scroll away, leading to increased bounce rates for your blog.
This is the same thing that will happen if you’re creating shorter and straightforward blog posts in a niche where your audience expects you to be very well detailed and thorough with your blog posts.
Increased bounce rates is not what you want for your blog as it can lead to a decrease in your search engine ranking and your overall traffic. You want to have as little bounce rates as possible. And one of the ways to achieve this is by creating content that aligns with your audience intent and expectations in terms of length.
So, before creating your next blog post, find out the ideal length that your audience appreciates. You can do this by conducting surveys, polls, paying attention to analytics to understand the average duration of time spent on specific blog posts etc.
This will give you an idea on what works. And you can use this to further improve the outcomes of your content.
Analyze your Publishing Platform
Written content thrives on different platforms including blogs, social media platforms, forums etc. These platforms play a role in fixing the ideal blog post length for your posts because they can limit the number of words directly or indirectly.
Platforms like LinkedIn, X and some specific forums for example do place a direct limit on the number of words you can post for some specific kind of content. You can’t post anything beyond this word limits per time.
Some other blogging platforms too like Facebook for example may not directly limit your post length but you can be limited based on audience preferences in terms of post length on that platform.
Being on the safe side means choosing the right platforms that allows you to publish the ideal blog post length that will deliver the best outcomes for your marketing effort.
PS: Even where a platform allows you to post as length blog post as possible, always pay attention to the other prevailing factors listed here before choosing the ideal blog post length for your posts.
Observe your Competition
Who are your competition and what’s the length of their own content? This is a very important question that will influence the ideal blog posts length for content on your blog.
When you’re in a niche that has massive competition, you have to pay attention to what your competition is doing in terms of their content length among other key considerations.
If the highest ranking blog posts in your industry is around 2500 words, planning to outrank such posts will mean writing valuable and solution driven blog posts that’s within that range with a very strategic keyword placement.
Remember, observing your competition also includes staying on top of the trends. With the introduction of innovations like AI powered Generative Engine Optimization, Helpful Content Update, Spam Update among other guidelines, it is crucial to understand how your content complies with all of this, if you want to gain maximum outcomes.
Monitor Your SEO Goals
Your SEO goals are the specific outcomes you want to achieve with search engine optimization strategies. It is a very crucial factor that will affect the ideal blog post link you’ll want to aim for your blog.
As a blogger in a competitive niche, you’ll need a good mix up of keywords, back links and semantics to get a better ranking for your posts. These factors do not really favor shorter posts, especially when it comes to keywords placements.
In fact, for some specific niches, you will need a very decent number of keywords spread before you can get a reasonable ranking for your pages. To get this kind of spread in some cases, you may have to embark on writing a much more lengthy content so you can easily
Another thing you have to keep in mind is backlinks. If a part of your SEO goals involves attracting more backlinks then you might have to write longer form content which simply means your post will be exceeding 1500 and above limits.
Final Words
In a nutshell, when it comes to answering the question; how long should a blog post be? Bear in mind that there’s no unified consensus or specific ideal length for a blog post that everyone must follow.
But while it’s always advisable to keep your blog posts above or around the threshold of 1000 words at least, always remember that bloggers will always keep their blog post at different length for different reasons as listed in this post. And you must always put this into consideration.
While deciding on the average length of your blog posts, always keep in mind your topic, audience needs, your niche, competition, SEO goals etc. And even the available time you can spare to create the content.
Put what you’ve learned today into consideration and you’ll come up with an ideal length for a blog post that will be suitable for your audience while helping you to deliver your SEO goals.
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Now it’s over to you. What’s the average length of blog posts you’ve written? Drop your comments below.
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