Content is considered to be the king of blogging. Bloggers invest time to do thorough research and present high-quality content to the readers. With quality content, the primary goal of most writers is to attract more traffic to their blogs.
With Google algorithms changing in recent years, both digital marketers and SEO professionals are in the race of getting their SEO practices right to improve their brand’s online visibility. Therefore, considering all the SEO factors related to the content is essential for bloggers.
SEO improvement and user engagement are affected by a lot of factors, and the content-length of your blog post does impact it too. Due to this, bloggers are often found in the dilemma of how much should they write to rank higher in Google or what is the ideal blog post length for increasing the SEO.
Content does hold the utmost value, and quality content is ruling the internet. However, the updated Google algorithms have ignited the debate on whether long-form content is ranking better than short-form content. The length of a post can be determined by various factors including the target audience, topic, industry, source of desired traffic, etc. There is no perfect length for a post, the right approach is said to be frequently written content.
Why is long-form content preferred? An optimal content length helps your page rank better because it is more likely to cater to the user’s intent. Hence, content-length is about optimizing it for a human visitor. In the end, you want your reader to achieve their goals of visiting your website successfully. As said, long-form content is preferred more because it helps give in-depth knowledge on a specific topic and therefore increases the chances of a visitor finding his/her solutions.
It is believed by many marketers that the ideal content length for a blog post in 2021 should be between 1800 to 2400 words. However, depending on your site and the content kind, your ideal content length will differ. Continue reading the blog post to know a simple method of figuring out the most optimal content length for your next blog post.
Before we dive deep into the details of an ideal content length, these are the other factors that matter more than the length of your content when it comes to ranking your page:
- Having a targeted keyword to focus on
- The keywords that you use in your subheadings
- The number of external links that your site gets, i.e. the number of outside domains that are linking to your website.
- A solid introduction that keeps the reader interested
- Make your posts feel shorter for readers while lengthy for Google
A blog post of fewer than 300 words is considered to be ‘thin content’ by Google. Over the years, it is noticed by professionals that Google prefers more content over short-length content. However, the range of words for a post length keeps differing for various sources and studies.
The one thing sustaining is that each type of content is created to meet different types of intents. What may have worked for others might not work out for your site. Google is looking for content with intent, the volume of the content may come later as far as the ranking matters.
Elements Of An Ideal Content Blog
As mentioned, focusing only on the length of your content will not help you rank higher in the search results. These are the other factors that you need to consider to create a perfect blog post:
- Have a target keyword, use it in the beginning, end, title, subheadings, and meta description
- Include visuals (images, videos, graphics) to gain the attention of the audience
- Start with bold, bigger, and interesting text like a provocative question or a promising value
- Use subheadings and bullet points to increase the readability of your text
- Insert alt text with keywords and have a description of the images
- Ensure to have more data, facts, and examples in your content
- Try to answer all the questions the audiences might have
- Make a short-link URL for ease of shareability
Ideal Content Length For SEO
Now that you know the other elements that impact your content for SEO purposes, let’s go through the steps to figure out the best length for your blog post. As suggested by the Hook Agency, this method is called the ‘Top Ten Average Method’.
- Find the top 10 posts on your website that get the highest traffic from the search engines. If you are using analytics, filter on the basis of the organic search criteria.
- Use these 10 blog posts and determine their lengths using any web page word count checker tool.
- Take the word count of the top 10 posts and find its average using this formula:
[(Combined length of top 10 posts) – (Word count of Header, Footer, Sidebar length x 10)] / 10 = Ideal blog post length
While this method only works if you already have a few well-performing web posts. If you are new to blogging, or if you are looking to up your game, the ideal content length for a blog post in 2021 is recommended to be between 1800 words to 2400 words.
Always remember quality over quantity because value attracts readers, and the intent of the content appeals to Google. Here are the simple ways in which you can increase the word count of your blog by ensuring quality content:
- Check for the topics that Google suggests in their search box when you enter the keywords or your topic
- Look for the kind of media that will enhance your blog post
- Think of sub-topics based on the intent of people searching for the topic
- Go to the ‘People also ask’ box on Google for SEO purpose
- Look for the topics in the top 5 articles ranking on Google
Always do your research before you start writing the article. It is not the race of achieving your target word count but retaining the readers by fulfilling their needs. Know that the time spent by the readers on your site matters a lot too and therefore having quality content is a must.
Why Having Lengthy Content Is Essential?
You might be wondering why Google is favoring lengthy content and ranking it better. If you see the top article ranking in the search results they usually have 1500 plus words of content. Well, here are a few reasons why lengthy content ranks better:
- Users find it more interesting
- It is considered as more “link-worthy”
- It directly allows for the more in-depth answers
- More words may mean more authority
- Visitors tend to stay for a longer period on the site
- It mostly has a higher social media engagement
When you adhere to the above-mentioned factors, Google notices is when crawling your website and ranks it higher.
As mentioned, lengthy content is beneficial for your blog’s SEO, focus on the intent of your content too. It will help you ensure that the content successfully provides the answers to the user’s questions and you build a long-term relationship with them. Post exploring this, we hope that you do not restrict yourself to the length of your content when optimizing it for SEO.
In conclusion, simply adding more words only for SEO is not a long-term and sustainable solution. The only way to move forward in your SEO journey is by writing long-form content that is worthy and provides value to the readers to rank your website higher in 2021.
About Author:-
Hetvi works as a Marketing Associate at Refrens.com – India’s most powerful platform for freelancer’s finances and growth. She has worked for some renowned companies as a Brand and Digital marketing associate. You can follow Refrens.com on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.