Does size matter?
How long should a blog post be? Is bigger really better? Yes. No. Do you think I frequently give self-contradictory advice?
Yes. No. Maybe.
How Long Should Your Post Be?
Keep in mind that search engines don’t spell out exactly what they are looking for, so search engine optimization becomes a mixture of common sense, conjecture, word-of-mouth, advice from successful webmasters, and experimentation with little or no control on confounding variables.
I used to tell everyone that a post should be at least 500 words. I still think that is a good rule. Content is king, and generally speaking, more relevant content is better than less. I realize that getting some bloggers to write anything at all is as easy as pulling a hen’s teeth. However, I have been experimenting with some shorter posts that are getting indexed and ranking rather quickly. Perhaps loosening my guidelines will encourage people to write.
I am revising my minimum word count number down to 300+ words. With Google, I have had plenty of 200 word posts do well, but Bing is now a big player because it is actually a pretty good search engine, and it comes as the default search in many new computers.
Here is a word counter tool that might come in handy for you:
Maximum length? Some folks say 1000 words max, while other say 4000 words max. What do I think? If you don’t need several thousand words to get your point across, then don’t write such a long post. Also, if your post is getting long because you are drifting from topic to topic, you would do better to divide your post into several shorter posts. More tightly focused posts are more likely to be valued by the search engines.
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Category: Tips for Noobs
3 Responses
As a new blogger this was helpful information, I especially liked the blog counter, thanks!
If the emphasis is placed on meeting a certain amount of words, many times “fluff” is added. I like it when people stay to the point – no fluff.
As long as it gets the point across it shouldn’t have to be a certain length. There can be too much though, sometimes you are better off posting two blogs rather than one.