Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about getting your website found by the right people. And, in order to do that, you need to have high-quality content on your website. The question is: how long should that content be? Is there an ideal blog post length for SEO?
There’s no one answer to the question of how long a blog post should be for SEO purposes. Some experts say that longer posts are better, while others maintain that shorter posts are more effective. What’s the ideal blog post length for your website? It depends on your niche, audience, and goals. Keep in mind that there is no “one size fits all” solution – you need to experiment to find what works best for you. However, there are a few things to keep in mind as you decide how long your post should be.
Ideal Blog Post Length Depends on Your Audience and Goals
When you are trying to determine how long your blog posts should be, the first thing you need to do is take a look at your audience. What sort of people are visiting your website? If you are writing for teenagers, they likely have shorter attention spans and would not appreciate a post that goes on for many thousands of words. However, if it’s a topic that interests them, they’re more than likely to read your post in its entirety.
On the other hand, if you are writing for people who have a high level of education, you could probably get away with longer posts because these readers have longer attention spans and are used to reading more complicated articles.
What is your primary goal for your blog post? If you’re trying to rank on Google, stick with a length of 1,500-2,000 words. It takes more short posts than long ones to rank as highly as possible. However, if your goal is to get people clicking through from an email so they can learn more about your products or services, 500 words might be all you need.
Another thing that matters is how long posts tend to be in your niche. If most of the posts on your blog are 1,000+ words in length, then there’s nothing wrong with writing longer posts. However, if most of the posts on your site are 400-500 words each, you should probably stick with that length or below. What Are Some Other Considerations?
There are many different things to consider when you’re trying to determine what the ideal blog post length is for SEO purposes. The fact is that every niche, audience, and goal is different. Here are some other things to consider as you determine how long your blog posts should be:
1 – Research the competition – Look at what length the competition has settled on as a guideline for their own posts. You can use this information to determine whether or not you want to go with a similar length for yours.
2 – Go long enough to deliver value – Keep in mind that your content needs to provide some sort of value. If it doesn’t, then why would someone bother reading the whole article? So, don’t just go with an arbitrary number of words. Take a look at what you have to say and how you can make it benefit your readers.
3 – Don’t pad your content – Don’t include useless information in order to make the article longer. This will only annoy people and turn them off from reading what you have to say. Make sure that everything included in the post is useful and relevant.
4 – Be consistent – If you want to establish yourself as an authority on your blog, you need to be consistent with your word count. If one post is 400 words and the next is 1,000+, it makes you look unprofessional and may cause people to lose respect for you and/or your website.
5 – Don’t write too short – Keep in mind that if your posts are short, they may not appear on the first page of the search results. If you want to ensure that people are able to find your page when they search for information about a topic, try to stick with 400-1,000 words if possible.
6 – Stick with one goal – If you’re writing blog posts solely for SEO, then you want to stick with the ideal length dedicated to that. However, if your goal is to get people clicking through from an email or post on social media, go for a length that will attract their attention and pique their interest.
How Long Should Each Type of Post Be?
Here are some suggestions of optimal lengths for specific types of blog posts. Remember that these are just guidelines and that you should be creative with your writing!
1 – How-to Posts – According to HubSpot, how-to posts should have an ideal length of 2,000 words or more. This is because they tend to cover a lot of information about the steps involved in performing a task.
2 – Opinion or Advice Posts – This is another type of post where word count is important because it provides readers with the information they need to make their own informed decisions. However, you shouldn’t go overboard and provide so much detail that the post becomes boring. Try to stick between 700-1,000 words for these posts.
3 – Product Reviews – A product review should be long enough to go into detail about the product and what it can do, but not so long that people become bored with reading it. A good length for reviews is 500-700 words.
4 – Case Studies – These posts are like how-to posts, but they offer more in-depth information about a topic. If you want to write a long case study, make sure that it’s something that people will find interesting and valuable when they read it.
5 – News Posts – A news post should only be as long as necessary in order to cover all of the important points. They don’t need to include a lot of details, and can usually be written in 200-400 words.
Conclusion
The ideal blog post length will depend on what your goals are for your page, how long you want the content to be, and more. Just remember that whether it’s 400 words or 3,000+, you should have enough valuable information to engage readers. This will improve people’s interest in what you have to say and increase traffic to your site. However, there’s nothing wrong with using the 400-1,000 word range as a starting point for your blog posts and then adjusting them according to what you think is best. Post length isn’t the only thing that matters in SEO – there are plenty of other factors involved in getting ranked well in search results.