How Long Should My Blog Posts Be?

LONGER THAN YOU THINK

There was a time, not too long ago, when the sweet spot for a blog post was 500 words–and the more blogs you wrote per week the better. Now the sweet spot seems to be 1000 words once a week. We still can make a strong argument for why you should blog more frequently your first year.

WHAT CHANGED? WHY LONGER BLOG POSTS?

The short answer is Google updates. Google updates how it ranks pages all the time. Every day. Multiple times a day. Most of these updates are minimal and almost unnoticeable, but once in a while, they will have bigger updates—big enough to get names like Panda, Possum, and Penguin. Each of these bigger updates is designed to filter out those websites that try to game the system with poor content and enable Google to provide better search results.

3 BENEFITS OF THE LONG FORM BLOG POST

1.  Okay, the first benefit is giving Google more to work with. When you are writing a thousand words, assuming you’re not just long-winded, you are making more associations to your core topic. You are most likely using more phrases that are loosely related to your topic, but in aggregate contribute to reinforcing your topic. Essentially you are broadening the words associated with that blog and creating more hooks for Google to grab onto.
2. The second benefit is a direct result of the first benefit we just mentioned. Longer blog posts get more organic traffic. This has been supported by HubSpot. Since you have given more for Google to work with, Google will display your page in search results more often.
3. The third benefit? Statistically longer blog posts get shared more. There is a lot of speculation why this is true. The most popular guess is longer posts give readers more to choose from.

IS EVERYBODY BLOGGING 1000 WORDS?

Nope. The average is still between 500-1000 words. When you segment the most popular length for professional bloggers the number is closer to 1000; 1050 to be exact. There is even an argument that the most shared blog posts are at 2000 words.
2000 words?! Yep, the blogs that get shared the most and have the most organic search results are ones that break the 2k mark. According to SerpIQ, the top ten results for a query are usually all above 2000 words.

ISN’T BLOGGING SOMETHING BETTER THAN BLOGGING NOTHING?

We still feel like having a blog as part of your content strategy is better than not having none. Consistency is still important. You will want to have at least one blog post a week and during your first year at least 3 times a week. That’s why when you begin blogging we recommend taking Brainjar’s 150 Post Challenge. Statistically, there is lots of evidence that you get better returns with posts of at least 2000 words. A manageable sweet spot is a weekly 1000-word post. However, we like to be concise and the post you are reading is only about 500 words—which is still a good minimum.

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