What do bloggers crave the most?

Traffic. The more of it the better.

They’re constantly looking for some magic formula to increase it.

They never stop experimenting with their own content and checking what works and what doesn’t.

One of the most interesting things they test all the time is the Length of a blog post.

They create shorter and longer posts and analyze how well they do.

What they’ve found?

You’d think that the Longer the post the better, right?

That’s partially right – it doesn’t always work like this.

Let’s find out if all the blog posts have to be long to get good traffic.

What the Stats Say? What’s better for SEO?

We want to rank on Google, right?

So what is statistically the best solution to rank as high as possible?

Brian Dean says it’s more likely to get better position if you Write a longer post.

His studies show that most times the longer content outranks shorter content.

What else did he find?

He found out that the average length of a Google first page result is 1,890 words.

If we wanted to compare it to the old standards then 1,890 word posts should be considered long.

Even though there’s a certain correlation between the length of the post and the position it ranks on we can only speculate that Google prefers longer articles.

Perhaps it’s easier for the search engine to understand the topic when the content is longer or perhaps it’s something else.

I guess we won’t find out any time soon and that’s why we should stick to the logic and ask ourselves what should determine how long the blog post should be.

Let’s find out now!

What Should Determine The Length of a Blog Post

When creating any kind of content we have to look at things like competition, our own content strategy and the type of the post we want to write.

All these things can help you decide what number of words should a particular article have.

Let’s take a closer look at those things right now!

When Trying to Beat and Outrank Your Competitors

Someone ranks higher for a particular keyword than you?

Well, there are many ways to beat him.

Getting more backlinks, increasing your site’s overall authority, optimizing your On-Page SEO or… creating a longer and better post.

Yes, that might work.

If you feel that there’s space to improve, if there’s something your competitor didn’t write about make sure to cover it.

Make it more thorough, optimize it better and you can definitely take his place in SERP.

When You Feel That a Simple Answer is Enough

You found a question on Quora and you want to answer it in a blog post.

That’s a good idea.

You research the topic to make your article as thorough as it can be and you find out that you won’t need more than a few hundred words as it is completely enough to answer it thoroughly.

Yes, that happens, too.

What you shouldn’t do is to try to fill the post with fluff.

It’s the worst you could do.

You Prefer to Publish Shorter Posts but You do it More Often

You’re your own man.

You’ve got your own content strategy.

You prefer to publish more frequently but to be able to do that you create shorter posts.

Well, if that works for you it’s fine but you have to be aware that the posts you write have to be really high quality to outrank someone with higher domain authority who created longer content.

Your Audience Prefers This Type of Content

You check your stats on Google Analytics and you find out that your readers prefer simple answer type of blog posts.

That’s some good feedback you should absolutely use.

You analyze those posts and you find that they are short but answer a specific question very well.

I guess simple works best, right?

You Just Love Writing This Kind of Posts

You prefer to write shorter or longer posts?

This can be a great indicator of the quality of your content.

How?

Because if you’re struggling to put only valuable stuff into a longer post or you’re not able to cover the whole topic using less words this can actually tell you which way you should go and what kind of blog posts you should create.

What I’m saying is to follow whatever you feel more comfortable writing because it usually correlates with the quality you put out.

When a Picture Tells a Thousand Words

If you’re creating a blog post with lots of images like infographics or screenshots then you probably won’t need that many words to make it valuable.

A lot of value is in already in the picutres. That’s exactly why you put them in the first place.

It’s actually super difficult to write a really long post when you put a lot of very informative images into content.

If you’re trying to put some more words into it make sure it’s not fluff.

Focus on The Quality of The Blog Posts

Content length doesn’t matter that much to be honest.

What is important is the quality.

You can write 2,500 words of content but it may not be top notch.

You can write 500 words and it can be absolutely awesome and it can answer all of the questions people ask on Google.

So, don’t focus too much on the length.

Focus on what are people exactly asking for, what type of posts you prefer to write, what works better for you right now and how can you improve what’s already there.

That’s it!

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Want to know what to include in every blog post you create? Find out in this post:

How to Create a Great Blog Post. Step-by-step Checklist.

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