How Long Should Your Blog Posts Be?
What’s the magic number for how long should your blog posts be to gain traction?
Should they be short and sweet around 250 words?
or maintain an informative in-depth blog of around 10,000 words?
Before we answer the questions on blog length, it’s imperative to realize your purpose for writing one.
In this write-up, we’ll explore the length of blog posts to ensure you generate traffic to your website.
The Middle Ground for Answering - ‘How Long Should Your Blog Post Ideally Be?’
With numerous blogs being crammed into the digital space every day, content marketing with 300-400 blogs no longer make the cut.
In short, writing petite blogs to rank on Google is history.
Reports state that the ideal blog length is directly based on a person’s attention span. An average person has 7 minutes of undivided concentration before diverting their attention.
In this case, about 1400-1600 words are the perfect middle-ground for most readers to consume your article.
Writing above this word count isn’t necessarily bad. In fact, Neil Patel demonstrates exactly why 3000+ long-form content is great for value seekers.
After all, the longer the blog post, the more value.
Here are some of the reasons to post above 1000 words to gain traffic.
- Average blogs on the internet are usually below 500 words
- Google searches for well-researched and value-based content
- Long-form content is usually evergreen content that attracts readers for a longer time
- Convincing your readers with long-form content increases conversion rate
- Longer blog posts distinguish you as an industry leader
Now to answer the big question – how long should your blog post be?
Anything over 1000 words is flawless for today’s standards (2020).
Here’s a report by HubSpot to prove that long-form content is the way to go.
[Source]
Out of 6,192 blog posts, the highest performing pages were over 2,250 in the word count.
If you’re writing a long-form blog, don’t stop till your word count shows 2250. However, if you desire a short blog, anything above 1000-words should suffice for ranking on Google.
Still confused? We'd recommend a complete read through of a beginner's blogging guide.
How Long Should Your Blog Posts Be to Affect Social Shares
The social scene is a powerful one. People share articles with their friends and family all the time.
But does word count influence their decisions in sharing them?
Take a look at this image below.
[Source]
One look at it and we see that long-form content crushes the shorter format. The current trends demonstrate that there’s a strong desire for value.
Ask yourself – which of the two articles below are you likely to read?
1. How to Write an Effective 500-word post to Attract your Audience?
Or
2. How to Write the Finest 2000-word Article of Your Life to Attract Readers?
A majority would line up to write long-form due to its perceived value.
But when it comes to social media, your title length is the biggest factor in performance.
A title with 12 to 14 words is among the highest shared content on Facebook.
[Source]
Other parameters that affected social media shares apart from word count were
- Blog posts with infographics in them
- Titles with ‘e-book’ added to them
- ‘How to’ articles were extremely popular
- Articles with templates had a high share count
To dominate your social media campaigns, it’s a good idea to utilize the following elements along with a long-form content over 2000 words
How Long Should Your Blog Posts Be to Gain Comments from Readers
Comments are generally common in shorter blog posts ranging from 275 to 500 words.
For example, take a blog written on TheWritePractice. The total word count is just 300 words with only 36 shares (at the time of writing), and a whopping 388 comments.
Shorter blog posts are excellent conversation starters. They don’t generate the best SEO and may rank poorly on Google. However, for debate purposes, short blogs are great.
It’s important to remember the purpose of writing a blog. Each word count attracts a different audience.
With 10,000 words of blog content available on the internet, there are loyal readers who enjoy a novel styled blog.
As the saying goes – Different Folks Different Tastes
There’s no one size that fits all.
Conclusion
A good rule of thumb is – get comfortable with short content before tackling the long-form.
The idea is to engage the reader and not to confuse them. When writing the long-form, the writer starts off great but misleads the reader into a whole new topic than the title.
Long content that is confusing won’t rank better than a high-quality short blog.
Start small, grow big naturally.
A ballpark of around 700-800 words is ideal for new writers that are serious about SEO. At the end of the day, it’s the quality of your blog post that matters and the word count is secondary.
What is your preferred word count? Why do you stick to it? Be sure to comment with your insights.
About Pavan Punja
Founder of Drifting Words.
Fascinated by topics related to Entrepreneurship, Personal Development, Psychology, and Technology. Enjoys occassional gaming and producing SynthWave tracks in his pastime. A professed lover of the 80's Eurodance scene and yearns for a time machine to revisit the past.
The quote he lives by
The 3 P's to success - Preparation, Persistence, and Patience.
Pavan, nice breakdown buddy. I mix it up myself. Some long. Some short. All above 500 words.
Ryan
Hey Ryan! Thanks for the positive feedback bud. Mixing up helps me maintain a fine balance as well!
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