How Long Should a Blog Post Be?

There’s no single rule for blog post length. But there are some word counts that are more favoured by search engines than others, depending on the purpose of the content you’re producing. In this article, we’ll be explaining why blog post length matters, how long the blog post should be, ideally, and how you can generate a high-quality blog post that will perform well online, getting you maximum exposure. 

Why does blog post length matter?

You might be wondering why blog post length actually matters. The short answer? It influences a wide range of factors involved with ranking in the search engine results pages. The factors that affect blog post length, either negatively (if too short or too long) or positively, include the following:

• Search engine rankings
• Reader engagement and completion
• Perceived authority and depth
• Shareability and backlinks

How long should a blog post be?

Essentially, deciding how long your blog post should be depends on the goals you have. There’s an ideal length if you want to generate traffic and engage in SEO growth. There’s another ideal length for blog posts, instilling thought leadership and brand authority, and so on. So, what’s the ideal blog post length for the purpose of your content? Let’s take a closer look:

• Blog posts for traffic and SEO growth – 1,000-2,000 words. Focus on search intent, structure and internal linking
• Blog posts for brand authority and thought leadership – 800-1,500 words. Prioritise clarity, originality and insight. Length will matter less than perspective
• Blog posts for engagement and social sharing – 600-1,000 words. Tighter writing makes for easy social sharing. Strong hooks and conclusions are critical here
• Blog post for emailing or content repurposing – 500-800 words. Easier to adapt into newsletters, LinkedIn posts or even threads

6 tips for writing a quality blog post

Now that we know how long a blog post should be, let’s talk about how you can create one that is high quality and will, therefore, rank in the search engine results pages (SERPs). From having a purpose before writing to knowing your audience, here are six tips for writing a quality blog post, no matter how long it might be:

1. Have a clear purpose

Before sitting down to write your article, you should have a clear plan and direction. This helps you to give it some structure. In addition, it also enables you to get some research done prior to writing the content as a whole. This enables you to provide sources to back up claims, facts and statistics, therefore increasing reputability and trust in the process.

2. Know your audience

There’s no point writing content for a law firm that’s informal and colloquial because their audience and their clients will not appreciate content written in that tone of voice. Another example would be writing content for a student union that is extremely formal, stuffy and full of jargon. You need to know who it is you’re writing for before you actually sit and write anything. There are multiple ways in which you can find out more information about the audience you’re writing for, whether it be your own or that of your clients, and that includes:

• Google Analytics
• Social media engagement
• Social media insights
• Online surveys and polls
• Consumer research
• Interviews
• CRM (customer relationship management) data
• Competitor analysis
• Social listening

But what is it you’re looking for? What do you want to find out about your audience? Here are a few pieces of information that you should be seeking out about your customers:

• Age
• Gender
• Occupation
• Buying habits
• Relationship status
• Pain points
• Complaints
• Feedback for improvement

3. Take care of your spelling & grammar

When Google crawls content, it looks for correct spelling and grammar as a way of picking out the websites that are reputable. In fact, there is a correlation between bad spelling and grammar within content and low rankings in the SERPs. With this in mind, you need to make sure that your spelling and grammar are up to par, especially if you want your content to be considered high-quality by the algorithm. 

4. Provide purpose & value

Google loves quality content, and that involves making sure that your blog post is helpful, valuable and written for a specific purpose. The reader needs to be able to apply what you’ve written to their situation. This is where things like step-by-step guides can be useful. As such, your blog post, should you want to be written to a high standard, should be:

• Clearly answering questions and queries
• Offering practical advice
• Explaining why that topic or subject matters
• Including examples, insights, facts and statistics
• Adding legitimate and reliable sources 

5. Write clearly

Clear, concise and easy-to-read content is a great way of boosting the quality of your blog post. Not only does it make it easier for people to gain value and purpose, but clarity also builds trust. You should pay particular attention to the structure of the piece. This includes:

• Making sure that headings aren’t too long
• Keeping paragraphs short 
• Creating lists and bullet points for easy skim-reading
• Avoiding unnecessary jargon
• Using short, direct sentences
• Incorporating simple language
• Highlighting key ideas or pointing in bold

According to WIX, 73% of people admit to skim-reading the content they read online. If the majority of internet users do this, then you should be catering to them. Making your blog post clear and easy to read is a great way of getting the job done. It’s even possible with long-form content using the methods I’ve just mentioned.

6. Optimise for SEO

SEO, or search engine optimisation as it’s also known, is what helps to make sure your content is being seen by the right people. The very fact that you’re writing a long-form blog post should work in your favour. It’s clear that, despite all of the algorithm changes, long-form content still dominates the Google search engine. 

This, alongside long-form content being good for SEO, should be all that’s needed to make sure that your blog post is appearing as high up in the SERPs as possible. However, there are some other things you should take into consideration when optimising blog posts for ranking purposes, including:

• Naturally incorporate 
• Use descriptive headings and sub-headings
• Add internal and external links
• Write meta-friendly titles and descriptions
• Never sacrifice readability for keyword stuffing

Kumo provides expert digital marketing services to businesses across the country. Serving clients in a variety of industries, our team specialises in SEO, PPC, content creation, website design and more. If you’re ready to grow your brand and enhance your online presence, get in touch with our experienced team today.