When it comes time to write your blog posts, you will get a ton of different advice. Some say that you should post every day, often several times per day. Others will say that fewer posts, but more in depth is the way to go. So when you sit down to write blog posts for your website, you scratch your head and wonder, “How long should my blog posts be?”
After careful analysis and thorough investigation, I have determined the ideal length for a blog post.
Your Blog Posts Should be Short
When you sit down to read a blog post, do you want to read a bunch of fluff? No, you want to read exactly what needs to be said in order to drive the point home. In order to grab your reader’s attention, hold it for the few seconds they actually give you, and give them your call to action, you want short blog posts.
Unless you have different goals.
Your Blog Posts Should be Long
If you want to get a lot of SEO pull, then you want to have longer posts (unless you are building a reputable site on short posts, then you want to have a lot of shorter posts). When I write for some of my clients, I like to sprinkle in shorter posts with longer posts. Now keep in mind that a “short” post is 500 words, and longer posts are 1,500 or more.
For instance, on my post about writing kickass blog posts, I made the post about 1,400 words. That way I could get a good pull from the search engines on it. I did the same when I wrote over 2,200 words on Billings Computer Repair. And recently when I wrote a little over 2,000 words for Billings Siding Repair. You get the idea; longer blog posts will give a little more SEO pull.
That is unless you go with posting more often but shorter content.
Your Blog Posts Should be What They Need to be
Unfortunately, there is no ideal length for your blog posts. If it takes you 500 words to get your point across, then use 500 words. If it takes 10,000, then write for 10,000 words.
But whenever you write, keep this primary rule of writing in mind:
Write for your audience, not for you or for the search engines.
The focus of the content should be on the people reading it. Search engine optimization and results will follow. Nobody wants to read about you, they want to read about how you can help them.
TL;DR version: write enough to get your point across, and skip the fluff.