The blog is one of the most undervalued tools in the world of digital marketing. Believe it or not, as many as 70% of businesses don’t even have an SEO strategy.
Well, that’s good news for you. Less competition means it’s easier for your blog to soar, and we can help you learn how. Let’s talk about the ideal blog post length for SEO value.
Why Does Length Matter for Blog Post Content?
Within your content strategy, you will need to consider the frequency and length of your blog posts. Your word count plays a role in your SEO value and user experience (UX).
Google’s algorithm uses over 200 factors related to your website to determine its ranking on specific searches, and part of that includes the word count and character count of your content. Because of this, focusing on word count is an important part of your SEO strategy.
Factors to Consider
There are several important factors to consider when determining the ideal length of a blog post. For example, how much information is there to provide about your specific topic.
Topic
The topic plays an important role because if you’re writing an article about how search engine optimization works, then there is a lot to say about it. In this case, long-form content will be prioritized for such a general search. Google will want to provide users with extensive information on such a broad topic.
However, if the content is about the importance of local SEO for law firms, then the content need not be as long. There is simply less information needed to provide.
Search engine algorithms will determine the appropriate length based on the competition. The keywords you are ranking for will already have existing content that’s been indexed, and that will set the standard for your ideal word count.
Quality of Content
Under no circumstance is poor quality recommended for an SEO strategy. If you are going to focus on anything, quality is far more important than word count.
Google even has the “panda penalty“, which is used for sites that slip past their radar and manage to rank highly with low-quality content. This penalty alone can destroy your SEO strategy.
If your content has a lot of fluff, then the less, the better. Always have something to say and always remove content that offers no benefit or purpose to the topic at hand.
What Is the Ideal Blog Post Length?
There isn’t exactly a one-size-fits-all solution to blog post length. However, in the ideal situation where you have a lot of useful information to portray to your audience, then the longer, the better. Again, the focus is always primarily on quality.
In general, any content consisting of ~500 words won’t exactly benefit your SEO value. That’s not to suggest that 500-word articles won’t serve any purpose in your content marketing strategy, but they shouldn’t be your primary use.
Generally speaking, content that is near 1,000 words tends to do better than anything under 700. 900 words should be considered your low end, for most industries and topics.
On the high end, ~2,000-word articles are common and tend to perform well in SEO. 3,000-word articles and higher are excellent for long-form content that needs to offer a lot of information. However, 1,500 to 2,000 is generally a good range for quality content.
The way to decide if your content should be on the shorter or the longer end is by looking at your SEO keywords. Long-tail keywords, especially involving a local market, can typically handle shorter blog posts.
Consequently, short-tail keywords should use longer-form content on average. This is because short-tail keywords have much higher volume and, therefore, higher competition. If you aren’t offering all of the necessary information on broader topics, your competitors will.
In short, you don’t want to think about Google when determining an ideal word count. You should focus on the standards of your competition and, most importantly, provide your users with the information they seek. Quality is what Google’s algorithm is designed to find.
Develop a Strategy
Keywords should always be a part of your SEO strategy, and so should word count. When developing your strategy, create briefs or outlines for your blog content ahead of time, including the type of blog content, and the blog length.
Try to make them as diverse as possible, which is easier to do when you develop the strategy ahead of time.
For example, if your company sells cars, you should be ranking for short-tail like “cars near me” or “used cars in Boston, MA”, and long-tail phrases like “new Subaru Foresters for sale in New York” or “2010 Ford F-150s in Providence”. Of course, this will involve keyword research, this is just an example.
From there, you should follow up this diversified keyword strategy with a diverse long-form and short-form content marketing strategy. Remember, short-form content is appropriate for niche topics and long-form content is valuable for broad topics.
Remember to be consistent with your timing of content and to change up your topics as much as possible. Spreading your eggs across multiple baskets is strongly advised!
Watch Your Content Grow!
Now that you know how to determine the ideal blog post length, you can begin to implement these tips into your content marketing strategy. The sooner you do, the sooner your SEO strategy will come to fruition. Stay up to date with our latest news and feel free to contact us for any help you may need!
