How long should a blog post be?
If you have been blogging for any given amount of time, you will have, at some point, asked yourself this question: How long should a blog post be? What really, is the best blog length? Should it be 100 words? Should it have 300 words or should it run up to 3000 words in length?
The Gospel According to Yoast
Yoast is, without a doubt, one of the best SEO tools that you can have on your blog or website. I have been using this amazing tool for some time on this blog, and it has enabled me to stay focused in terms of my Search Engine Optimization strategies. So, what does Yoast say about article length?
Why are longer posts best for SEO?
As you can see in the above screenshot, Yoast recommends that a blog post be 300 words long. This Yoast Blog Post states that longer articles have a better chance of being ranked by Search Engines. There are several reasons why that is the case:
Search Engines can better index longer posts. What this means is that Google, Yahoo and Bing have a better chance of determining what you are talking about if your blog post is 1000 words long. That is less likely to be the case with a 100 word article.
Another reason why it is better to have a longer blog post comes from the fact that there are likely to be more of your keywords in a longer post. This increases your article’s visibility on Search Engines.
Best Blog Length: My own articles
So, how long are my posts on this blog? Well, I do come from a literature background and can write up to 10000 words in a single day if I strain myself. I have a gig on Upwork with a client who gives me 15* 500 word articles every week. I write them all in one day, at the rate of an article every 30 minutes. That makes my output something like 7500 words a day, but, again, I would be straining myself.
If I am not trying to kill myself, I can safely produce up to 5000 words a day without breaking a sweat. Most of the articles that are on this blog are, therefore, longer than 1000 words long. In fact, I have some that are over 2000 words long. I do have to say, however, that I have not yet noticed any differences, in terms of SEO rank, between the shorter and longer posts. But then, my blog is less than a year old.
Long Blog Posts: The Setbacks
Having longer posts has one major disadvantage; Its difficult to maintain reader engagement. Sometimes a post can only be a few words long and trying to murder it in order to satisfy Yoast or any other plugin will get you nowhere.
Conclusion
Let me conclude, before I start “murdering” this very post. So, how long should a blog post be? Well, the answer is, “its complicated.” You should always strive to make sure that your posts reach over 300 words. That is one of the ways through which you can ensure that your web pages are noticed by search engines. However, reaching this length should not come at the expense of readability. People who surf across the internet are looking for specific information and they do not have the time to read about other things while waiting for you to finally reveal yourself.