Blogging is considered an excellent marketing tool in today’s internet-driven business world. Entrepreneurs understand the importance of creating blog posts to get their businesses more online visibility. They use blogging to drive site traffic, generate new leads, increase SEO rankings, boost audience engagement, establish authority, and gain other benefits. But what is the perfect blog length to achieve these results?
The length of your content should depend on your goal. There really is no right or wrong, or even a perfect length of blog post for that matter. Whether it’s a 200-word blog post, one that has around 1,000 words, or a blog with more than 2,000 words, it can work wonders for your business. Take a look at these points when creating a blog post.
Short Blog Posts
According to a HubSpot research, more readers today are likely to just skim blogs and long form content rather than read the entire content. And this can be attributed to the decreasing attention span of humans. If you consider these facts, then it’s probably best to create short blog posts and be as brief as possible. The best example for this would be the short blog posts of successful entrepreneur, author, and marketer Seth Godin. For Seth, the shorter, the better as it’s perfect for his audience, his style and approach, and his message.
Short doesn’t also necessarily mean lacking. If you can pack your blog with all the meaty information that you wish to impart in just 200 to 300 words, then that’s great! Short blog posts, especially the discussion-based ones, also tend to get more comments. So, if you are after increased audience engagement and generating discussion, then create a short blog like this one by writer and entrepreneur, Joe Bunting.
Medium Length Blog Posts
Aside from your blog’s topic, the content itself, and the size of your existing audience, the length can also influence how many shares you get on social media. And a medium length blog post – which is around 700 to 1,500 words – is considered a good length if you want your blog posts to get more social media shares.
According to this Quick Sprout data, blog posts with at least 700 words get more shares compared to the ones that are shorter in length. Medium length posts are also good for SEO and for starting discussions, thus helps boost engagement among readers.
Long Blog Posts
If you want your blog to get more traffic from Google, better social media shares, and high SEO rankings, then creating a long post is the way to go. This could be from over 1,500 words to around 3,000 words in length. As a matter of fact, according to some statistics, the average word count of blog posts on top of search engines is 2,416. This just proves that search engines love longer, heavily researched, and authoritative posts.
With regards to “shareability,” entrepreneur and investor John Rampton claims that his longer blog posts get more shares and are more interactive than the shorter ones. These posts also helped him reach out and connect with his audience, which is important for his business.
While longer posts have these advantages, it’s important to remember, though, that they should be about a topic that people are interested in and want to learn from. Otherwise, they will just skim or totally skip your blog.
Length is an important factor that you need to consider when writing a blog post, but it’s not all that matters. As entrepreneur and analytics expert Neil Patel suggests, you should also take into account the substance, style, frequency, format, purpose, audience, and medium. Keep these things in mind, vary your lengths, and see how your posts influence your audience. Go for what works best for your business and have fun blogging!
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Check out these other blogs on our content writing tips series:
- Science-based Ways to Beat Writer’s Block
- How to Create Consistent Content
- Infographic: How to Beat Writer’s Block and Create Consistent Content
- How To Create An Evergreen Content
- 5 Ways You Can Reuse Your Content
- Infographic: Creating and Using Evergreen Content
- How to Create Compelling Blog Titles
- Infographic: How to Create Compelling Blog Titles
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