When publishing any kind of blog post, it’s likely that you want people reading it. Even those who publish their own thoughts via their hobbyist blog, technically only writing for their own enjoyment, will no doubt hope the content reaches an audience. And in the wild west of internet, we can never be too certain just how those metrics may play out.
If you hope for your blog post to be successful, however, it’s important to follow a few useful techniques. First, we must make sure the content is worth reading. Spellchecking, using easily digestible paragraphs, and even a few images with light file sizes can help break up the content nicely. Yet perhaps one of the most important and fundamental matters to get right is your blog post length. Just how many words should you aim for? Having a strict limit can help keep your content relevant, to the point, and fully read.
There are a few questions you can ask yourself to determine how long your blog post should be:
What Are You Trying To Achieve?
If you’re hoping to write a quick recipe or thoughts about a particular subject, it could be that 400 words are more than enough. Any more than that and you risk boring your audience. But if you hope to delve deep into a subject, such as writing an ultimate guide, then 2000 – 5000 words may be appropriate.
Look At The SERPS
When it comes to search engine ranking pages (SERPS), the higher your page is shown, the better. In fact, many SEO experts often recommend that the longer your word count, the higher you are likely to be shown in these listings. But that’s not always the case. What matters is relevant content per word count. Are you repeating the same phrases, concepts or over-emphasizing certain points? A bloated word count of this nature can seem impressive, but it’s both unlikely to be read and will also adversely affect your readable style, and thus your content rankings. This is Google’s effort to reduce keyword spam or those trying to falsely engineer the search engine algorithm for their own particular gain. Check the pages that are currently ranking well in the SERPS to get an idea of what Google is looking for.
What Are Your Competitors Doing?
It can be worth checking what your competitors are doing, and what particular rankings they may find. For instance, articles on health conditions often promoted by Healthline or MayoClinic are lengthy, or short and to-the-point, depending upon the search phrase, but they are never lacking in relevance. This approach will also guide your decisions regarding the kind of article you hope to post.
Stay Focused, Stay Relevant
It’s best to stay focus and stay relevant when writing and publishing content. Avoid ‘fluff,’ as hitting a perceived word count is not always better. Think about user intent – what does the reader want from the article?
With this simple advice, we hope you can more easily understand just how many words you should have in your blog post.