If you’re creating service or industry SEO content, you may be wondering, “How long should a blog post be?” That’s a perfectly valid question, and you need to know the answer to generate the most useful blog posts.
Get in touch with Romain Berg to get the advice of the SEO content pros.
Before you get started writing, here are some insights. As we’ll see, there is more to blog post effectiveness than how many words they contain. Traditional SEO norms, like high-quality keyword research, are still essential.
How Long Should a Blog Post Be?
Some recent data suggest that the ideal blog post length comes in at around 2,100-2,400 words.
Now, that’s an aggregated number based on one blog’s experience, so bloggers certainly have room to play around.
A powerful SEO post includes many ingredients, and depending on the circumstance, length is only one of them. The length of an individual piece integrates with other essential factors to create impactful content that draws customers.
Longer Blog Posts Have Potential to Yield Higher Search Engine Result Page (SERP) Rankings
Search engines determine your SERP position by indexing your content. Nearly every piece of blog content is eligible for indexing: alt text, headers, tags, etc. Search engines have more to work with based on the sheer volume of items you provide for indexing.
Therefore, you may conclude that longer blog posts generate more opportunities for variety. The more words on the page, the more opportunities for long-tail variants of your keyword or phrase. Certainly, when you do this, you can give the search engines more fodder for indexing.
On the other hand, you can’t simply throw a bunch of text on a web page and hope for the best.
When your content has a natural, conversational tone, synonyms, and related phrases for your keyword or phrase arise effortlessly.
The result, then, is higher SERP rankings, due in part to length, but also – crucially – your writing style.
Effective Marketing Blog Posts Should Encourage Backlinks and Social Media Shares
Blog posts rely on others to get the word out. When content is compelling or convincing, people will share it with their networks.
Backlinks and Social Sharing
Backlinks are another way you can bring in readers and customers into your site. When other sites and blogs link back to your site, it establishes you as a credible authority in your field. Once again, longer content seems to be rewarded with more backlinks on other sites.
Search engines tend to place a higher priority on content with a great many backlinks. Backlinks usually indicate your post conveys a high degree of authentic expertise.
People tend to share content consisting of 1,500 words or more.
Of course, social media is the other crucial way people share blog posts. For that reason, you should be sure to include social sharing buttons on your business’s page.
Finally, make sure your blog posts have a shareable URL with your keyword in it.
In this area, at least, URLs are one area where length isn’t desirable. Shorter URLs are more shareable, and therefore enjoy the benefit of potentially higher SERP rankings. Some platforms don’t allow the sharing of longer URLS, so make sure you optimize yours for ones with shorter character counts.
Begin with the End in Mind: Lead Generation
Remember, with marketing content, you want to do more than bring in readers. You want to generate leads and attract potential customers or clients. To that end, you need to determine the most effective length for these posts.
Again, the goal is to establish authority and credibility. Longer, in-depth content focused on specific topics tends to stand a better chance when it comes to higher SERP rankings. Accordingly, some SEO experts recommend word counts of around 2,500 words for marketing blog posts.
Longer content can contain the additional hidden benefit of internal linking. Marketing blog posts with higher word counts allow you to organically include links to existing content on your site.
Different Rules Apply for Different Kinds of Content
Of course, not all marketing blog posts are the same. When trying to answer the question, “How long should a blog post be?” an effective reply might be, “What kind?”
Different kinds of marketing blog posts serve different purposes. For example, listicles differ from pillar pages, which vary from “how-to” posts.
It all goes back to authority and trustworthiness. Each kind of post should be of a different length to generate leads. For example, longer listicles – again, between 2,300-2,500 words – tend to be more effective for this goal. Long lists are more effective than short ones; length conveys broader knowledge of a given topic or field.
Other types of posts include pillar posts and “how-to” pieces. Pillar posts can be long – in fact, they should be longer to be effective.
These posts can help streamline your content by topic. Pillar posts can also potentially boost your SERP rankings by telling search engines about your company.
All of these recommendations for posts with higher word counts are focused more on the goal of lead generation. That’s not the intent of every marketing blog post, however. At some point, you want to see conversions.
Of course you want visitors to your site, ideally many of them. However, for your site to be a success, you need to convert the idly curious into the actively interested. In the final analysis, effective web marketing blog posts convert readers into customers.
Take, for example, “How-to” blog posts. They’re a little more self-explanatory than pillar posts or listicles; they are essentially tutorials. These posts derive their value from the way they showcase your expertise and the effectiveness of your product or service.
“How-to” posts establish your site as authoritative in a different way than something like backlinks. If these posts are useful or instructive – regardless of length – they can inspire social sharing.
What’s Your Goal? Length Is Important, But It’s Not The Only Thing
When your marketing content writers ask, “How long should a blog post be?”, give them more than the desired word count.
Of course, writing longer posts can provide more opportunity to incorporate keywords and longtail phrases. On the other hand, carefully deployed SEO can help shorter blog posts punch above their weight.
What are those tactics? Mainly, the same SEO best practices we all know and love. Backlinks, alt text, and useful, well-researched keywords still matter.
Additionally, be sure to include pictures and graphics throughout your blog posts. Remember the adage: a picture is worth 1,000 words!
Don’t obsess over the question of length for blog posts (you’ll notice this post is under 2,100 words). While longer pieces may be better for SEO in some cases, they don’t necessarily translate to conversions.
Ultimately, when it comes to content length, factor in what you know about your target audience. Depending on what you know about them, shorter posts may actually be the way to go.
Let the Pros at Romain Berg Help You Create Lead-Generating Content
As you can see, useful, engaging SEO content is more than something that’s “nice to have.” To stay competitive in the 21st century, businesses almost can’t afford not to have SEO content on their websites.
This effort takes dedication and talent, and many businesses don’t have time to commit to genuinely compelling content. Your friends at Romain Berg and their talented content writers are standing by to help you out.
Why hold back when you know there’s a powerful tool that can link you with customers? Start generating the SEO content your business deserves with the content marketing professionals at Romain Berg.
