One question very common among new bloggers is: how long should my blog post be? Every blogger has once been faced with this dilemma. Some bloggers will tell you shorter blog posts work for them, while some others would say longer blog posts have worked better for them. Now, hearing from both sides may end up getting you all the more confused.

There are three things that must play an important role in deciding the ideal length of your blog. First, your writing ability. Second, the nature of your writeup. Third, Search Engine optimization (SEO).

Now, let’s see how each works.

Your writing ability

There are many writers that are highly skilled at summary writing and are able to stack up all the main ideas of their writeup in a few hundred words. Whereas, some others require a lengthy writeup to communicate all the ideas of their writeup. Let’s assume those writers are not SEO conscious. They only enjoy writing and getting people to read their writeup.

Both strategies are very good. Depending on what you are trying to achieve.  Most times, I find it a lot easier to communicate my ideas in a few hundred words.

Writing a lengthy article demands a heavy research. I must admit though, it’s the best way to blog (good research). The more research you put into your work, the better the final piece of article.

The nature of your writeup

People who tend to write a blog post for short term consumption usually aim for less than 1000 words. Let’s say, your are compiling a report on a football match or any other sporting event. These types of reports must be summarized in the fewest possible words.

Sports reports should be aimed at getting people to voice out their opinions on your article. If it becomes too lengthy, people will not get to read the whole article. From a problogger research, an average reader of your blog post has a short attention span.

So, if you are aiming for a better engagement with your visitors, then you must keep your blog posts as brief as possible. The shorter, the better (in this case).

People who run a celebrity gossip blog or any other form of entertainment blog must also aim at writing a few hundred words. Celebrity gist always spark up a discussion. So, there’s no need for it to be extremely long.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

From my experience, search engines always give preference to lengthy and heavily researched articles. So, if you are able to research properly and write a lengthy writeup, then, why not?

Some lengthy writeup are deliberate actions to get a better rank on search engines. Reason is that, with a lengthy writeup it is easier to include all the keywords in your writeup without making it look like you are “keyword stuffing”.

If you are interested in knowing the minimum length of a blog post for SEO, then you should be aiming for at least 300 words. That’s what SEO experts advise. However, you are at liberty to go way way above that.

You must never aim at writing a lengthy low quality blog post. It’s better to express the ideas of a writeup in only a few words while still retaining its quality.

I have seen articles with less than 500 words ranking number 1 on Google result pages. No one really know how Google algorithms work. From my experience, I’d say, aim for quality. Somehow, somehow, Google knows a quality writeup.

If your shorter blog posts will contain more quality than your longer ones, then, there’s no point writing a lengthy blog post with lots of Gibberish.

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