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Ideal Blog Post Length: How Long Should Your Content Be?

Aug 30, 2024 |   ideal length of a blog post

The ideal blog post length is between 1,500 and 2,500 words. You must focus on creating relevant, high-quality content that engages your users. Word count matters, but aligning content with reader intent and search engine guidelines is necessary.

Ideal Blog Post Length: How Long Should Your Content Be?

When you search on Google for blogs in any niche, you’ll find millions of entries in a variety of lengths and styles. This naturally raises a big question: ‘What is the ideal length of a blog post?’ 

To answer this, you can look at the average word count of top-ranking pages, which typically falls more than 2,000 words. However, the key is to write enough to fully cover your topic and satisfy the reader’s needs, which means the ideal length can vary depending on what the user wants. 

In this post, you’ll know what the ideal blog length is and what factors you should focus on to ensure your content meets both SEO and reader expectations.

Why Is the Ideal Length Of A Blog Post Relevant For SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps you draw more clicks to your website by climbing up the rankings. SEO has many factors to make your site appealing to search engine algorithms and one of them is the length of your content.  

People often aim for blog posts between 1,500 and 2,500 words. Sometimes this can be a good idea because you can add informational content, which is valued by search engines. This range also helps with ranking better because longer posts can comprehensively cover a topic, include more keywords naturally, and provide greater value to the reader, which in turn can improve user engagement and signal quality to search engines. 

You can just think of it this way –  the length of your article can reflect the depth of information you’re offering. But there are no stats that you have to write a long word length blog for your website to be recognized by google. 

Basically your ideal length of blog post or any article is completely depend upon your user intent. Write content that has the potential to give your user quality while covering all the topics. Content that’s thorough and engaging tends to keep visitors on your web page longer and reduce bounce rates. Search engines take these as positive signs, often rewarding such pages with better rankings.

Also, in-depth content has a higher chance of earning backlinks from other reputable sites, which are gold in the SEO world. The more backlinks you have, the more trustworthy your website appears to search engines. 

But here’s a word of caution: more isn’t always better. Search engines are smart and getting smarter. They can easily tell the difference between content that’s genuinely informative and content that’s just long for the sake of it. The key is to balance the length with the quality of your content, which makes every paragraph count. You have to provide value and not just fill up space.

Search engines are like thorough readers; they are capable of knowing which content fully answers users’ questions. Longer content often covers topics in more detail, which can help with this. Also, short content has the potential to clear intent queries with limited content quality.  ‘

It’s not just about hitting a word target but about creating content that’s engaging, informative, and, ultimately, useful for your readers. Here’s an example to help you understand why the length changes based on user intent,

Imagine someone searching for “how to fix a leaky tap.” They’re probably looking for a simple, quick guide to get their tap working again. A blog post that’s around 500 to 800 words would be perfect here. This will be just enough to walk them through the steps without making them bored.

Now, think about someone searching for “complete guide to tap repair and maintenance.” This person wants a proper guide into all things tap-related, like different types of taps, common problems, the tools you need, and how to keep things running smoothly. For this, a blog post of 1,500 to 2,000 words or more would be great. It gives them the full picture and all the details they’re looking for.

When you search on Google for blogs in any niche, you’ll find millions of entries in a variety of lengths and styles. This naturally raises a big question: ‘What is the ideal length of a blog post?’ 

To answer this, you can look at the average word count of top-ranking pages, which typically falls more than 2,000 words. However, the key is to write enough to fully cover your topic and satisfy the reader’s needs, which means the ideal length can vary depending on what the user wants. 

In this post, you’ll know what the ideal blog length is and what factors you should focus on to ensure your content meets both SEO and reader expectations.

Why Is Ideal Length Of A Blog Post Relevant For SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps you draw more clicks to your website by climbing up the rankings. SEO has many factors to make your site appealing to search engine algorithms and one of them is the length of your content.  

People often aim for blog posts between 1,500 and 2,500 words. Sometimes this can be a good idea because you can add informational content, which is valued by search engines. This range also helps with ranking better because longer posts can comprehensively cover a topic, include more keywords naturally, and provide greater value to the reader, which in turn can improve user engagement and signal quality to search engines. 

You can just think of it this way –  the length of your article can reflect the depth of information you’re offering. But there are no stats that you have to write a long word length blog for your website to be recognized by google. 

Basically, your ideal length of blog post or any article is completely depend upon your user intent. Write content that has the potential to give your user quality while covering all the topics. Content that’s thorough and engaging tends to keep visitors on your web page longer and reduce bounce rates. Search engines take these as positive signs, often rewarding such pages with better rankings.

Also, in-depth content has a higher chance of earning backlinks from other reputable sites, which are gold in the SEO world. The more backlinks you have, the more trustworthy your website appears to search engines. 

But here’s a word of caution: more isn’t always better. Search engines are smart and getting smarter. They can easily tell the difference between content that’s genuinely informative and content that’s just long for the sake of it. The key is to balance the length with the quality of your content, which makes every paragraph count. You have to provide value and not just fill up space.

Search engines are like thorough readers; they are capable of knowing which content fully answers users’ questions. Longer content often covers topics in more detail, which can help with this. Also, short content has the potential to clear intent queries with limited content quality.  ‘

It’s not just about hitting a word target but about creating content that’s engaging, informative, and, ultimately, useful for your readers. Here’s an example to help you understand why the length changes based on user intent,

Imagine someone searching for “how to fix a leaky tap.” They’re probably looking for a simple, quick guide to get their tap working again. A blog post that’s around 500 to 800 words would be perfect here. This will be just enough to walk them through the steps without making them bored.

Now, think about someone searching for “complete guide to tap repair and maintenance.” This person wants a proper guide into all things tap-related, like different types of taps, common problems, the tools you need, and how to keep things running smoothly. For this, a blog post of 1,500 to 2,000 words or more would be great. It gives them the full picture and all the details they’re looking for.

Factors Influencing The Ideal Blog Post Length

When figuring out the perfect length for your blog post, there’s more to consider than just counting words. Here are the factors that you have to focus on,

Quality Over Quantity

Good and quality content beats long content easily. It’s not about filling up space but about filling your content post with real value. Quality content answers questions, solves problems, and provides insights that are relevant and meaningful to your readers. A well-crafted short post can outperform a longer, less engaging one by miles. So, while aiming for a certain word count, remember that every word should serve a purpose.

Audience Engagement With Proper Keywords

You have to understand the audience that you are focusing on with the content. And know what your search intent will look at in your service, like if they only need short answers or they are looking for a broader content for getting a perfect answer for buying a product.

The length of your content can play a big role in how readers interact with it. Long posts, when done well, have the potential to deeply engage your readers, giving them a reason to stay longer on your page. This could lead to better engagement metrics like lower bounce rates and higher time on the page.

Search and analyze the keywords that you want to target for your audience. And adding these targeted keywords helps in your long content can solve the queries that your user is searching for. Always remember to satisfy your users’ search query with the content that you are writing with keywords and user intent.

However, if your audience prefers quick reads, a shorter, concise post might keep them coming back for more. Understand what your audience wants, try experimenting with different lengths, and measure how they react to find what truly resonates.

Look into Subject Complexity

Some topics just need more room to breathe than others. If you’re dealing with complex subjects, like a detailed guide on SEO tactics or an in-depth analysis, you’ll likely need more words to do justice to the topic. On the other hand, a simple product review or a quick update on company news might not require as much space to be effective.

Consider the depth of information required to cover your subject fully, and let that guide the length of your post. If you are struggling with the subject that you are taking, you can put that up in an image representation or video type. This way, you can satisfy the user’s intent with the proper information.

Write content by adding these content formats too. 

This is the way you can engage your target audience with the proper content, that means content length matters. You can use visual or audio content, be sure to add it with written content that can make sense of everything on the webpage. 

Ideal Blog Post Lengths for Different Purposes

The length of your blog post can really shape how it performs and what it’s best used for. 

Ideal Blog Post Lengths for Different Purposes
  • Less Than 300 Words:

These types of content are usually just meant to get a conversation started or share quick updates. They’re not great for SEO or social media shares because they don’t give you much room for a topic. But you can use these types of short articles for users on very basic topics.

  • 300 – 600 Words:

This was once the standard length, but now it might be too short to show real authority. This type of content length is good for brief updates or quick tips. These posts also might not rank high in search engines or get a lot of shares.

  • 600 – 800 Words:

Perfect for professional articles, product descriptions, and encyclopedia content. It’s long enough to be informative but not too much. This range can start to get social shares and backlinks because it offers a decent amount of information without being too lengthy.

  • 1,300 – 1,700 Words:

These length contents are for detailed “What is…” guides and educational posts. This length lets you cover a topic thoroughly. Through this length of posts, you can provide valuable, in-depth content.

  • 1,700 – 2,100 Words:

These are deals for “How to…” articles and in-depth content. It’s long enough to provide important info and drive conversions to your business. These posts do well in search engine rankings and can attract a good amount of organic traffic to the website.

  • 2,300 – 2,500 Words:

This is perfect for detailed listicles and comprehensive guides. Posts of this length are likely to rank well on search engines and drive proper traffic because they offer a complete picture of a topic.

  • 4,000 Words:

These lengths are best for in-depth pillar pages and thorough guides. It covers a topic in great detail, building strong authority. With this length, you’re likely to get a lot of traffic and cover a topic in extreme detail in order to build authority.  

In short, the right length for your blog post depends on what you’re trying to achieve. Shorter posts are good for quick reads, while longer ones are better for in-depth content and better SEO. Balancing the length with quality is key to making your blog posts effective and engaging!

Get Insights Into Your Content Performance With SuiteJar

When creating content, don’t worry too much about hitting a specific word count. There isn’t a universal rule for the perfect blog length. What really matters is that your content is genuinely helpful and addresses what your readers are looking for. You can focus on providing value and meeting your audience’s needs.

Try SuiteJar to get an advanced content optimizer for your website. It makes it easy to enhance your content, analyze keyword clusters, and achieve great results.