Friday 18 September 2009

Ideal Length Of A Blog Post

So what is the ideal length of a blog post?
I see this question asked time and again in the forums.

The simple answer is ideally 250 to 450 words.

...Because...

Readership

Today's Internet user has so many options that he or she is impatient to get on to the next thing. The next website, or blog. Check email. Hang out on Facebook. Or is it twitter? So when they land on your blog and there is a lengthy post on some topic or the other, they move on.

Focus

There really is nothing more irritating than starting to read a blog post which is supposed to be about a certain topic and then find the post goes around the houses instead of just getting to the point. Or worse still, goes off topic completely.

Knowing that you have only 250 to 450 words in which to get your point across helps you focus your content. package your points in a clear succinct and effective form. This gets rid of all the rambling and makes each and every sentence valuable to your reader. Meaning... You get there attention


Search engine optimization

Now this one is debatable but a lot of SEO 'experts' advice 300 to 450 words is ideal for SEO. Certainly we know that low content is not ideal for SEO. It makes sense that with a few words on a page there will be issues like word count to code ratio. And also how often can you include your keywords in a 50 word post?

But sometimes you really cannot cover a topic in a blog post that is 450 words long. Especially if you want to write a pillar article that really exhaustively goes over all aspects of a topic.

So what do you do then?

We'll cover this in a future post. :)

42 comments:

SEO Firm said...

That's true .. i want to comment on SEO that a blog posting can be 2 to 3 sentences atleast and the statement in the blog posting should be relevant to the topic and bit informative too for the readers.

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Nanci Murdock said...

I have found that a minimum of 300 words is best for SEO purposes. Also that no keyword should exceed 5.5% of the total article. Make sure your SERPS, and permalinks are nice and clean!

Best,
Nanci Murdock
The Money Coach

Rapid Income Creator said...

This is true. I find it hard to make it as concise and short as possible so readers won't get bored. It seems that people browsing the internet now is more hooked up to sites like Facebook and Twitter. But personally, I wouldn't go on reading a very long post unless I am really interested with it. I guess the best thing to consider is asking yourself, "Would you like to read your post yourself?" If you find it too long then most people might do too!

SubmitYOURArticle.com said...

Quite true, personally i don't want to read when the post becomes too long. And making a post too short sometimes doesn't make any interaction as well. I could also suggest adding some pictures or graphics related to the post just to make it more understandable for viewers. That's what I think.

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Harlton Stone said...

i am not sure, but if i were the customer and looking for post, i would like them to be very direct and related to the topic of course. As a customer i want to be directed to the information i am looking for. 3-5 lines of interesting facts is what i would be looking for on a post.
http://www.articlecat.com/Article/Internet-Marketing-Made-Easier/430438

PCRoger said...

I guess I get this one all wrong.

Many of my posts are 600 - 800 words.

In many of them, I am trying to teach something and really have a hard time conveying everything I want to say in fewer words.

Sure, I could split the post, but I also believe in the Yaro concept of "pillar" posts. Those that really define your site.

Best,
PCRoger
http://Learn-To-Make-Money.com

Tom said...

Excellent post. It's so true that people have very short attention spans nowadays, and I'm guilty of it as well. Grab your visitor when they arrive and give them the information they were looking for. My general rule for myself is to keep posts around 400-500 words. It gives me enough room to be specific in my information, and is very SEO-friendly. Thanks for your (ideal length) post:-)

Search Engine Optimisation said...

It's really true that an awfully long blog can be very tedious to read. So sticking on the relevance of the topic helps a lot.

Josh said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Nick Stevenson said...

I think a post around 500 words is ideal. If you are giving your readers value in your blog post then the length of the post becomes less important in regards to keeping their attention. I personally shoot for a keyword density of 1-2 percent in blog posts and articles.

Jemma Fox said...

Your article was a great help to me as we are trying very hard to engage with our customers. Sometimes it takes more than a short tweet - there is no substitute for content

sussane said...

nice instructions.i like it.try to apply.

SEO Philippines said...

I think blogs should never be limited in terms of word count. Write away, a blog is your journal and ticket in letting other people know you. Blog away until you're out of vocabulary words.

SEO Essen said...

The "in post" keyword density is becoming less important as the search engines become more advanced. The new trend is towards relevant content and a good link building strategy.

UK SEO BOY said...

as my knowledge. 2 or 3 Sentence is enough.

i will agree with first comments.
posting should be relevant to the topic and bit informative too for the readers.

Seo Services said...

I always wondered what the ideal length should be. Im noww questioning the length of my comments on the blogs also thanks to this article.

free search engine optimization tools said...

Generally blog post between 300 to 400 words with great content consider as a good blog post

aman said...

thanking you for this useful tips,thanx to told us about ideal lenght of ablog post.

social media expert dc said...

I definitely think that a character limit for SEO reasons is a bit silly, content and sharing are way more effective then a good ranking on Google. More people are turning to the social networks to get media specifically designed for their interest then searching for similar products.

Thomas said...

I agree connecting with my visitors is my number one goal. I absolutely use my content to help achieve this.

Chris Wilson said...

Great post!

You have to consider many different factors in order to determine the perfect length of a blog posts.

What are search engines ranking for?
Will the keyword density suffer if I make a really long post?
How long can I keep the attention of my readers?

This is different from every blog post you make.

Cheers,

Chris
http://howtoearnmoney-athome.com/how-to-write-articles

Web Design said...

Un articol foarte interesant. De asemenea si blogul este frumos si am gasit o groaza de lucruri interesante. Merita sa-l adaug in bookmark. Tine-o tot asa si te voi vizita in fiecare zi. :)

Tony said...

I agree completely. Too long and you loose your readers interest. Plus lots of paragraph breaks, nothing stops people reading your post more than a big wall of solid text.

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Cynthia from seo service said...

This post brings up a really valuable point for everyone involved in blogging.
I’ve bookmarked your homepage and will visit it regularly to read what’s new.

SEO Marketer said...

I agree with your blog post. It's just sad that some people don't get it.
My blogging posts are 300 - 500 words on average and sometimes I put up longer posts (depending on what the topic is).

5 Minute Articles said...

Great post. I agree with your reasoning, though I wouldn't be too worried about it. Sometimes a line or two is enough if the message is great. And if you include videos, not necessarily need much text.

Different for articles, though. But that's another topic. Hehe...

search engine optimisation packages said...

When reading blogs you're right about its irritating sometimes to start reading long blog without relevant points. It's necessary to write quality content with relevance on the topic.

seo reseller said...

I agree, the ideal length of blog post should be with 500 words or more, meaning in depth writing content both scores points on human readers and google crawlers or google bots. The Farmer / Panda / Scraper update made things more competitive.

Free SEO Tips said...

I want to become a good blogger i always try to make good blogposts but its 1st problem what will how long we write after reading your this post i gotted ideas on it.
Thanks Bro

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Jason said...

This is a great post along with a lot of valuable comments to boot! I think that you are right in the fact that most people's attention span can only handle 300-450 words, but sometimes that's not enough to get out what you have to say in your post.

kopi said...

I’d have to consent with you here. Which is not something I usually do! I love reading a post that will make people think. Also, thanks for allowing me to speak my mind!

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