So: you need to write a weblog put up. Allow me to be the primary to congratulate you. Writing could also be one of many largest boondoggles on the planet. It’s enjoyable, will be cathartic, and when achieved effectively/appropriately, it might pay some severe dividends for you, and for your small business.
How do I do know? I’ve penned a few weblog posts in my day. Some of them get tens of hundreds of reads every month (humblebrag). I say this not to toot my very own horn, however to let you know that I’m uniquely located to give recommendation on how lengthy your weblog put up needs to be.
Want the short reply? Like most issues, it relies upon.
I do know. I hate that reply too. But it’s true. Get a strong grasp in your use case, and mix it with the foundations I’m about to speak about, and I promise that by the tip of this put up, you’ll have a fairly rattling good concept how lengthy your weblog put up needs to be.
And as a result of we’re is all about serving to enterprise homeowners succeed by way of sensible digital advertising, we’re going to body this dialogue by way of exactly that lens: the marketer or enterprise proprietor who’s leveraging running a blog as a part of a broader content material advertising technique to drive site visitors, scale leads, and develop income.
But hey, even when that’s not you: I’ve a feeling you’ll get some worth out of this put up anyway.
How lengthy ought to a weblog put up be? What the information says
If you’ve spent a while combing by way of search outcomes in search of the reply to this query, you’ve in all probability seen that the outcomes are blended. Here are some solutions from the highest outcomes:
- 1,500-2,000 phrases
- 3,000+ phrases
- 2,100-2,400 phrases
- 300-600 phrases
Basically, the web says a good weblog put up is wherever from 300-3,000+ phrases lengthy. That’s not precisely a useful vary.
To get a extra data-supported vary, we checked out our prime 10 posts from the final 12 months and from the final three years. We discovered our best-performing weblog posts common 2,700-3,000 phrases.
That’s a little extra direct of a solution, however it doesn’t consider many components that ought to affect your weblog put up size. That’s the place these guidelines come in…
3 guidelines to decide how lengthy your weblog put up needs to be
Here are my prime three hard-and-fast guidelines to stay by if you would like to write a weblog put up that provides your small business the shine and visibility it deserves.
Rule #1: When in doubt, make it lengthy
You heard it right here first: size isn’t every part. And we’re going to speak exactly about why size isn’t every part in the sections to come. But as a common rule to stay by, deep, long-form content material is the content material that readers like.
Why? Because usually talking, size equates to worth. And–spotlight this subsequent level as furiously as you may–the factor search engines like google and yahoo care in regards to the absolute most is how a lot worth, on common, readers are getting out of your weblog put up.
So if, like advertising guru Seth Godin, you have already got tens of millions of readers subscribed to your short-form e-newsletter, or should you’re writing a weblog put up with a aim of repurposing it on LinkedIn, by all means, maintain it brief and candy.
But should you’re writing a weblog put up with the intent of rocketing to the highest of Google’s search outcomes, and driving hundreds of free eyeballs to your web site? Then you want to speak at size, and go deep, in your topic.
I’m not speaking about being wordy for the sake of writing a lengthy weblog put up. I’m speaking about giving helpful examples, giving a thorough clarification of ideas, and attacking your matter in a method that can go away readers pondering: Damn, that was complete AF.
If you’ve already written a bunch of long-form content material on your web site, I do know what you’re in all probability pondering: Man, I haven’t actually written at size on sufficient of those subjects. That’s okay. Because you have already got the scaffolding of a nice weblog put up. All you’ve gotten to do is beef it up.
If the individual I’m describing is you, right here’s a fast professional tip: any Search engine optimization software program value its weight in gold (suppose: Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz) goes to have an audit instrument that surfaces thin content for you. Thin content material is simply that: there should not sufficient phrases on the web page to meet the necessities for true topical experience.
You can use experiences like these to discern the place it’s obligatory to write extra. Or, you may merely audit your present content material manually and provides your self an trustworthy evaluation: how usually am I really going deep on the subjects my readers or prospects care about?
Rule #2: Above all, ship worth
This simply may have been our first rule, as a result of it’s in all probability a very powerful. But I feel it’s helpful to speak about worth by way of the lens of size, as a result of size is admittedly essential as a element of Search engine optimization-driven content material advertising.
But guess what? As I stated in the primary part: size isn’t every part. And the place size fails, you’ll nearly all the time discover that it’s as a result of the piece didn’t ship sufficient worth.
Let me clarify: Google and Microsoft have tons of of things they take a look at day-after-day when figuring out the order in which they rank content material. We name this stuff rating alerts (or components).
(*3*)
See that huge purple slice of the pie? That’s web page engagement. When Google is assessing how helpful or not helpful your weblog is to a person, it’s primarily taking a look at how efficient your weblog is at getting the reader to have interaction.
The essential metric to take a look at right here? Dwell time. You can take into consideration how lengthy a person spends in your web page, on common, as one of many strongest indicators of whether or not your weblog put up has delivered worth.
Dwell time isn’t going to present up in your Google Analytics experiences. However, Average Session Duration is, and it’s a nice metric for holding tabs on how lengthy your readers are spending in your weblog posts. Or, should you’re utilizing Google Analytics 4, which all of us might be quickly, you should use Average Engagement Time.
Other engagement metrics, like Engaged Sessions (the variety of periods that lasted longer than 10 seconds, or had a conversion occasion, or had 2 or extra display or web page views), and Engagement Rate (variety of Engaged Sessions divided by complete periods) are additionally actually robust proxies for site visitors high quality and are available to you in GA4.
How do you enhance dwell time? Well, it stands to cause that the upper your phrase depend, the longer the reader ought to keep on the web page. But what in case your prolonged weblog put up isn’t saying a lot of something in any respect? Then you’re going to have a troublesome time outranking your competitor. Even in the event that they wrote 500 phrases and also you wrote 1,500.
Consider how huge of an impression photographs, movies, infographics, and different visible examples could make on how lengthy you, personally, spend studying a weblog put up. Deep ideas will all the time enhance dwell time, as a result of they drive readers to consider what you’re writing about, and the way to apply it to themselves. It’s not all simply window dressing.
But should you can mix deep ideas with compelling visuals that lend context to the textual content and improve the worth your reader is getting out of the put up? Then you’re actually cooking with gasoline.
Rule #3: Do your analysis
Man, it’s fairly doable that not considered one of these guidelines is extra vital than one other! Because you may’t actually stay by the primary two guidelines with out taking rule #3 into consideration.
Let’s return to what I stated in the introduction about context. About understanding your scenario, your niche, your competitors, and above all, what you’re attempting to accomplish together with your weblog put up.
78% of entrepreneurs establish key phrase analysis as a high-impact apply for driving new site visitors.
But the aim behind key phrase analysis goes past merely optimizing your H1s and H2s. If you need to know precisely how lengthy to make your weblog put up, look no additional than the key phrase you’re attempting to rank for.
Let’s take a look at an instance. Let’s say you’re a roofing firm. You’ve been operating search adverts concentrating on prospects who’re in search of roofing providers, however you need to begin driving natural site visitors from people who find themselves extra in the “consideration” section of the shopping for course of.
You use your favourite key phrase analysis instrument, and discover that the key phrase “how to install metal roofing over shingles” has some good search quantity. The intent is strictly what you’re in search of: this individual might be contemplating the DIY route, however with some schooling, which your weblog put up will present, you may persuade them that steel roofing is a job finest left to professionals (i.e. you).
How lengthy ought to your weblog put up be? Well, you may merely enter the question into Google, copy and paste the textual content from the highest three rating weblog posts into a word counter, common them out, and write a put up that exceeds that quantity. Or you should use your favourite Search engine optimization instrument (I’m a fan of Ahrefs) to get all this data at a look.
As you may see, the top-ranking put up for this question has a whopping 4,205 phrases. That’s a beast of a put up. But even if you would like to rank in the highest 10, you’re in all probability taking a look at a minimal of 1,500 phrases based mostly on the opposite posts in this SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
This birds-eye view of the SERP is extremely helpful when figuring out weblog put up size, and never simply since you’re getting phrase depend totals. You may be saying, Wait a minute, the put up in the seventh place solely has 1,357 phrases. How is it outranking the put up in the ninth place, which has 3,555 phrases?
Well, the put up in the seventh place has a increased Domain Authority, and extra backlinks, which, you guessed it, are two extra actually essential rating components.
Do you’ve gotten a pretty new web site or enterprise, or are you continue to rising your topical authority? Don’t despair: take a look at the put up in the sixth place. It has the bottom Domain Authority in the bunch, the bottom phrase depend, and a fairly slender backlink profile, and but it’s nonetheless doing fairly effectively right here. How is that doable?
That’s the magic of rule #2 at work. If you may ship a weblog put up that actually delights and informs your readers, you give your self an incredible probability to rank and drive site visitors, no matter all the opposite components in play.
Make it lengthy, make it helpful, and do your analysis!
There you’ve gotten it! As I discussed, there are a variety of components that go into figuring out how lengthy a weblog put up needs to be. But you are able to do a heck of a lot worse than honing in on these three:
If you may outwrite your competitors, ship extra worth, and take a research-based strategy, I assure folks will learn and love your weblog put up.
I hope you liked this one! If you’ve gotten any questions or feedback, be at liberty to hit me up on LinkedIn. Happy writing!