In the world of blogging, “more” is a huge goal.
We want more people reading our content. We want more interaction and engagement. We want more backlinks, and we want more traffic.
Building an online audience is not something that happens overnight. Before you can hope to attract a loyal readership, you have to learn one critical skill: writing great blog posts.
Well, what makes a great blog post?
Well, we’d like to think that you’re reading one right now.
That said, it’s also important to note that there is no one-size-fits-all rule to blogging. If you want to go for the “more” factor, sometimes less is more, but other times more is more. It all depends on how you plan to market your post.
If you want to see some examples of stellar blogging, try looking at some of the power players in the arena – sites like Huffington Post and The Daily Beast. Click through a few of their posts and you will find definite similarities, but you will also find a diversity of content and writing styles that keep things fresh and keep readers coming back for more.
You will also find posts that vary drastically in length.
Now, ask a few self-proclaimed (and even others-proclaimed) blogging experts, and some will tell you that shorter is better: get in, say what you have to say, get out. While that approach might work for some subjects, it’s important to bear in mind that if you want your content to rank well with the search engines (and if you actually care if people read your blog), the content you produce has to be high quality.
What Do You Have to Say?
A 300-word blog can definitely get the job done in terms of SEO and visibility by the search engines, but will it have enough information to position you as an authority on a particular subject?
In some cases, it probably will. Let’s just say, for the sake of example, you run a blog for an animal shelter. You want to write blog posts about the specific animals that are available for adoption. Since you don’t know much about many of them beyond what you can see with your own two eyes, you aren’t going to want to bulk up the post with too much extraneous detail just to satisfy a word count or character limit. 300 words should do just fine to describe the animal, its approximate age, its demeanor, and any personal observations you might have about it. It can also be drastically shorter and have a huge impact.
If, however, you are writing a blog post on a specific breed of cat or dog, there is plenty of room to expand. 300 words will not cut it if you want to tell the history of the pug (which is quite interesting – I read all about it in a blog once) or explain why oriental shorthairs make the best feline pets.
What Do You Hope to Accomplish With Your Blog Post?
Now, there is somewhat of a formula for optimal blog post lengths, but it has more to do with the purpose behind the post more than it does with the subject. There are three questions you need to ask yourself before setting pen to parchment (virtually, of course).
1. Do you want to start a conversation?
If you’re looking for comments and discussion, less is definitely more. The reason for this is simple: fill the post with a bunch of editorial commentary, and you’ll steal people’s thunder. Keep the tone neutral and the information basic. Don’t give people more than they can retain long enough to respond to the general message. How long should these posts be? Somewhere in the 300-word category is generally pretty effective.
2. Do you want your post shared on social media?
Longer posts tend to get shared more, but not too long. First and foremost, you’re going for quality. It has to not only be a longer post, it has to be a good post – one that also sparks conversation but has enough complexity to draw a broader variety of comments from a much larger and more diverse audience. 600-1,200 words is about right for your purpose here, but a little shorter or longer won’t hurt you. If you’re using a professional blog writing service that charges by the word and you’re concerned about cost, 500 will work just as well.
3. Do you want more organic traffic?
This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play. It’s a good strategy to understand and use, but, again, it’s all about quality. Believe it or not, Google has become so sophisticated that it can tell if your blog post is garbage seeded with relevant keywords, and if it is, it won’t rank.
Here’s a problem that you will run into if you’re using a copywriting company but trying to do the SEO thing on the cheap: in order to get your posts recognized by Google, they need to be of considerable length and well-researched. How long? 1,000 words or better is optimal, and longer is better still. It is difficult to seed keywords at 1.5% in a 500-word article and maintain a natural flow to the text, even if you use a variety.
The Bottom Line
So how long should your blog posts be? The best answer we have for you is, “that depends.” Shorter articles generally won’t get picked up by Google, but they work great if you’re running ads and sending traffic to your site. The content will get read and shared, and your ads will get clicked. In that instance, SEO isn’t a huge consideration. Even a blog post as short as 75 words can make you thousands with the right ad strategy.
Longer articles are great if you’re playing the SEO game and if you want more organic traffic directed to your blog. Show Google you know your stuff and that you have something good to say about it, and people will come.
In short, write the length that you want but understand how each post is destined to perform.