Every few months we get some new advice from a blogging guru saying that our blog posts need to be longer, or shorter, or that they should be broken up into 10 pages of bite-sized chunks… it can make you crazy. Let’s talk about this. How long should your blog posts really be?
It would be great if there was a magic number that guaranteed the best results, wouldn’t it? But that’s like asking someone to tell you how long your conversations with other people should be. Sometimes it’s nothing more than a few words or sentences; sometimes you have a nice long talk. It all depends on how much you have to say to each other, doesn’t it?
The same approach works well with your blog posts. Sometimes you’re sharing just a quick tip or a recipe for example. In that case, something around 200 to 300 words will do just fine. Add a pretty picture and call it good.
Other times you want to go into a little more depth. You want to cover different aspects of a topic, share some examples and give your readers as much information as you can. In those cases make it as long as you need to make it. Long posts are great. They help establish your authority and if the content is great, they are often shared on social media. Plus long posts give the search engines a lot of text to sift through and give you more chances to rank for long-tail keywords.
The best advice is to mix longer and shorter blog posts. It will make your blog seem more natural and organic. Don’t force yourself to reach a certain magic word count if you don’t have that much to say on a topic. Keep it short and to the point. Your readers will thank you.
If, on the other hand, you have a lot to share in a different post, go for it. Break the longer content up into small paragraphs and help your readers stay on track with subheadings and bullet points. Make it easy to scan longer posts so your readers can get an idea of what the content is about before they commit to reading it all.
And if you’re finding yourself writing a few thousand words, consider breaking it up into a series of blog posts instead. It will help both you and your readers from getting overwhelmed with one long post. Link from one part of the series to the next to make it easy for your blog readers to follow along.
Above all, enjoy the process of writing and pay attention to what your readers prefer. If your short posts tend to do better, consider keeping your posts short and to the point. If you’re getting a lot more engagement and social media shares on longer posts, combine a few of the shorter blog post ideas into a longer one. And whatever you do, don’t get hung up on a number of words.
How long are your blog posts?
(And if you are counting, this post is 515 words all total!)
Thank you for this. It is a question that I think about. I am busy and prefer shorter posts that get to the point faster.
Great point, Andrea! Some people want long and deep answers, while others want short and too the point. It is all about what YOUR readers are looking for. Thanks for stopping by!
perfect post from the maestro!
You say the nicest things 🙂
When I find the post is going to be long, it becomes a multi-day post. Yes, I’ve actually posted an 1800 word blog- but that is the true exception. Removing the outliers (the two 280 and 3 1800 word blog posts), my average post is 455 words. 2 minutes for the average reader, 30 seconds for me. That seems to be the optimum. But, my data is anecdotal.
I often will create a series around a specific topic and run the article over 3 or 4 days as well.
I prefer shorter posts. My ADD kicks in when I see a post much longer than the one you wrote. I do a lot of scanning to find what I want to read.
And the Headings help for folks like you that like to scan. If you see something that catches your eye, you can go back and read it.
I don’t really pay attention to the number of words, just what I want to get across to my readers. Sometimes they are short and to the point, or a quick and delicious recipe while other times it seems I’m writing a novel. My granddaughter wrote a blog last year and it was never ending but once she starts, her mind keeps going.
That is perfect, Martha! Write for your readers, not necessarily for search engines.
Thanks for the tips Paul. Mine are a combination of long and short posts, or some may think, long and longer posts. I like the idea of seeing where you get the most engagement as a way to gauge what the readers want.
A variety is a good thing – it keeps your readers on their toes and becomes a surprise when they come to the site!
Thanks for stopping by and sharing!
I rarely look at the number of words- in school teachers, professors would say at least XXX amount of words, I could never get into counting words granted today we have the computer counting our words in the document but looking at that for me is rare. I think to look at the content and what question you set out to answer is answered is of utmost importance! If you set out to answer the question of how to make a chocolate cake- include the steps and make sure that the reader will get all the ingredients and at the end know how to make it a cake that will bake and end up a delicious treat for all to share!
If I am talking about the top five tips for XXX, include all 5 tips etc…..
In a word…. YES!
Since my blog posts are mostly photo essays, they tend to look longer than the word count would indicate. I strive for a “happy medium,” providing enough material for people to enjoy details, without overwhelming them too much (maybe minor overwhelm could be a good thing!)
That happy medium is a good goal to achieve – especially if it works for your readers! Thanks, Alice!
Mine is a mixture of short and long posts. I believe it depends on the topic. There are topics that need, as you say, depth.
I prefer to read posts that are not ‘chunky’ (big chunks of paragraphs). They’re more of an eyesore than a content.
I would understand an e-book to be very long but for a post? It has to be very interesting to read on to the last word.
Yes – depending on the length of an e-book (5-10k words minimum) would NOT be a nice read as a blog post.