{"id":419,"date":"2019-05-17T18:48:03","date_gmt":"2019-05-17T15:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.digitalmarketingpro.net\/?p=419"},"modified":"2021-06-27T20:46:50","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T17:46:50","slug":"how-long-should-a-blog-post-be-for-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/how-long-should-a-blog-post-be-for-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"How Long Should a Blog Post be for SEO?"},"content":{"rendered":"
How long should a blog post be for maximum SEO? What is the optimal blog post length for SEO? How many words should you write in a blog post so that it gets better rankings?<\/p>\n
These are questions that I get very often in the comments and in this post, I will help you understand how many words to make your blog posts.<\/p>\n
Before we start let me clarify from the beginning that blog post length alone, is NOT a Google ranking factor. There are other more important factors that can influence your ranking positions and the word count is NOT one of them.<\/p>\n
Various research studies over the last 10 years concluded that long-form content tends to rank higher in search results compared to short-form content. Although the number of words varies per niche, the ideal blog post length is between 1000 and 2000 words.<\/p>\n
Factors that you need to consider before deciding how long to make your blog posts are:<\/p>\n
The length of a blog post depends on its type.<\/p>\n
If you are running a news blog, then the length of the post depends on the available information you have, related to the story you are covering.<\/p>\n
People reading news<\/em> don\u2019t like to read unnecessary information just because you want to make your blog posts longer, but they need to get the \u2018facts\u2019 and this is what your focus should be.<\/p>\n So, in this case, the length of a post depends on the \u2018source\u2019.<\/p>\n If on the other hand, you are reviewing a new smartphone, then, in this case, you should try and provide as much meaningful information as possible.<\/p>\n Notice here the word \u2018meaningful<\/em>\u2019 which means that you shouldn\u2019t sacrifice the blog post quality for length.<\/p>\n In other words, while you want to have many words in your blog, don\u2019t repeat yourself or provide information that is not relevant to your topic as this will decrease the overall quality of your content.<\/p>\n In addition to the type, you should not forget the purpose of a post.<\/p>\n There are cases where the objective of a blog post is fulfilled with fewer words.<\/p>\n For example, a classified ad has the purpose of presenting a product or service in only a few sentences, so in this case the purpose of a post defines the length as well.<\/p>\n The first step I take before writing a new blog post is to search Google for my title (or focus SEO keywords<\/strong><\/a>) and quickly analyze the type and length of blog posts that are on the first page of the search results.<\/p>\n This is an easy and quick way to find out what Google likes about a particular topic.<\/p>\n For example, before writing the blog post you are reading now, I did my research and found out that the number of words for the first 5 results on Google are:<\/p>\n As you can see the range is very big, from 640 words to 4000 words! But 3 out of the 5 entries have 2000+ words.<\/p>\n This tells me that Google likes long-form content for this search term<\/em> but it all comes down to the quality of the content and domain authority<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Websites ranking in positions 1 and 5 are high authority domains so they have an advantage over the other three domains.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a fact that high authority websites can rank higher and without too much effort compared to websites with a not so high Google trust.<\/p>\n Important Note:<\/strong> To make sure that everybody is on the same line: it does not mean that if I publish a blog post that is 2000+ words, it will rank in the first positions of Google. There are many other SEO factors<\/a><\/strong> that play a role in rankings, the above test is just an indication of what Google likes in terms of word length for the particular topic and nothing else.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n You can follow the above technique for all types of blog posts and get an idea of what your competitors are publishing and what Google prefers to show in their top positions for that topic<\/em>.<\/p>\n Google Guidelines<\/strong><\/p>\n A recent document published by Google, known as the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines<\/strong>, talks about content length and although it does not specify a word count, it does mention the phrase, a satisfying amount of high-quality content.<\/em><\/p>\n2. What does Google want?<\/h3>\n
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