How long should a blog post be for SEO? In this article, you will discover the ideal length of writing a blog post for SEO based on industry research. There is a minimum length on how many words a blog post will be for better search engine optimization. You will also discover what Google has to say about long and short blog posts and find the best practices to follow for success.
Table of Content:
1.How lengthy should a blog post be for SEO?
2.Are longer blog posts better for SEO?
3.Do short blog posts hurt SEO?
4.What is the medium length for a blog post to be ranked by Google?
5.What does Google tell about blog post length and SEO?
How lengthy should a blog post be for SEO?
According to a HubSpot study, the ideal length for a blog post for SEO is 2,100-2,400 words. This is because blog posts of this length are better positioned in search engine ranking for relevant SEO keywords. HubSpot’s research measured the average length of the 50 most-read blog posts from organic SEO, and based on this research, “Individual blog post lengths ranged from 333 to 5,581 words, with a median length of 2,164 words”. Additionally, “The average word count was 2,330”.
Are longer blog posts better for SEO?
You should know that a long blog post is better for search engine optimization, and the reason why is that long-form content ranks better in organic searches. Typically, a longer blog post has more elements, including keywords, entities, evidence, and facts, substance, and they are all important factors for search engine optimization rankings.
As you can figure out, longer blog posts have more words for Google’s algorithm to crawl, allowing it to index that content for more relevant queries in search engines. On the other hand, a short blog post has a limited number of words, reducing the number of questions it can rank for in SERPs.
However, not all blog posts need to be 2,100-2,400 words long to rank high in the search engines for relevant search engine keywords. For example, in its study, HubSpot discovered that almost one-third of its blog posts were under 1,500 words – meaning that content is at least 1,000 words long and still ranked well in the search engine results pages for highly relevant keywords.
Another research (this time by Medium.com) reveals that the ideal blog post length to satisfy users is a 7-minute read blog post equal to 1,600 words. Hence, a good blog post length for search engine optimization can be between 1,000 to 2,400 (or longer), counting on the topic of the content.
Do short blog posts hurt SEO?
Unfortunately, a short blog post can hurt search engine optimization, and it won’t rank better on the search engine results pages. So even though short blogger posts can be perfect for social shares and landing web pages, they are too short of gaining much search traffic from search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) or SEO authorities.
Based on Backlinko’s study, “The average Google first page result contains 1,447 words”. Other studies report that “Long-form content gets an average of 77.2% more links than short articles”.
As you can see from these statistics, short blog posts can hurt your blog’s search engine optimization rankings from an on-page SEO and off-page SEO perspective.
What is the medium length for a blog post to be ranked by Google?
The truth is that a blog post needs to be +300 words long to be ranked by Google on SERPs. Three hundred words are the minimum length for a blog post to ensure its content is crawled and indexed for highly relevant search queries.
We must stick to what we mentioned earlier in this guide – longer posts do better with search engine optimization than shorter blog posts. That’s why we suggest writing 300+ word content to maximize the number of keywords it ranks for in search engines (i.e. Google).
In terms of SEO word count, a good rule of thumb is to have a minimum of 1,000 words for your blog post if you want to rank in organic Google search. Meanwhile, writing a blog post with 1,500 would be even better for SEO, but the ideal length will be a blog post with 2,100-2,400 words!
What does Google tell about blog post length and SEO?
Google Search Central SEO Office Hours session, John Mueller explained that there is no ideal blog post length for SEO: “From our point of perspective, the numeral of comments on a page is not a quality element, not a ranking element. So just blindly relying more and more on text to a page doesn’t make it better”.
Further, Google’s Martin Splitt states, “The number of words on a page is not considered when organizing a blog post in the organic search results.”
All we can say is that those 2 points stated above are essential to understand that for SEO, the blog post length is not a direct indicator of quality. And this means that having content with many words doesn’t always define that you are dealing with good content. Instead, what Google cares about the most is providing search results with demonstrated E-A-T (expertise, trust, authority) and satisfying user intent.
Anyway, writing longer content will make it easier for Google’s algorithm to understand better what your blog posts are about – the only thing here is that you need to publish comprehensive information. In this way, you will help your content position as an authority on the topic, enabling your web page to organize long-tail keyword interpretations in the search engine results pages.
Now it is time to discover some of the best practices that will help you to write more valuable and longer content for your blog posts.
- Do SEO keyword research before writing your blog post – this will help you choose the right keywords (primary and secondary) to include on your web page.
- Look at the average length of the top-10 blog post ranking in Google – make sure your content is within the same range.
- Ensure your blog post is long enough – include all of your relevant keywords for on-page SEO.
- Use HTML tags to divide the blog post into sections (H2, H3, H4) and include your target keywords in these locations.
- Add topically-related images in your blog post; this way, you will also extend the length.
- Use numbered & bulleted lists throughout your blog post – this will call out important points and improve readability.
- Include quotes from related resources such as books, news articles, experts, or other bloggers.
- Add relevant questions for your blog post topic – search on Google and look at the “People Also Ask” box for brilliant ideas.
- Include a short introduction – this will explain to your readers what the content is about.
- Include a summary – of some of the key posts discussed in your blog posts.
Summary:
So, if you want to rank for the most organic keyword in search engines, the ideal length of a blog post for SEO would be between 2,100-2,400 words long. But according to Google, what matters the most is satisfying user search intent and providing search results with proven E-A-T.
